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THE 



REDEEMED CAPTIVE RETURNING TO ZION 



1 1 /Am*,, Joli n. 



THE 

REDEEMED CAPTIVE RETURNING TO ZION : 

OR, 

A FAITHFUL HISTORY OF REMARKABLE 
OCCURRENCES 

IN THE 

CAPTIVITY AND DELIVERANCE 

OF 

MR. JOHN WILLIAMS, 

MINISTER OP THE GOSPEL IN DEERFIELD, 

WHO IN THE DESOLATION WHICH BEFEL THAT PLANTATION BY 
AN INCURSION OF THE FRENCH AND INDIANS, WAS BY THEM 
CARRIED AWAY, WITH HIS FAMILY AND HIS NEIGHBOR- 
HOOD, INTO CANADA, 

DRAWN UP BY HIMSELF. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED, 

A BIO GRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE 
REVEREND AUTHOR, 

WITH 

AN APPENDIX AND NOTES, 
STEPHEN W. WILLIAMS, A. M., M. D 




BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS 
FREEPORT, NEW YORK 



First Published 1853, 



Reprinted 1970 



ABF> 
» GlF T 



STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 

8369-5246-4 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 

78-109637 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



PREFACE 



TO THE NEW EDITION. 



The writer of the Memoir of the Rev. John Wil- 
liams is induced to prepare another edition of " The 
Redeemed Captive," and lay it before the public, on 
account of the repeated calls for this work. 

A great and growing interest in antiquarian research 
evinces the eagerness with which the present genera- 
tion seek after the particular history of their ancestors, 
and the desire they feel of becoming acquainted with 
their privations and sufferings, their hardships and dan- 
gers, in transmitting to them the beautiful heritage 
which they now occupy. 

This is especially the case with those who now re- 
side in the immediate vicinity of the place where those 
hardships and privations were endured, and also to 
their connections, who are scattered over various parts 
of the country. Many others too will read the thrilling 
narrative with interest and pleasure. 

" The Redeemed Captive " was written and published 
by the Rev. John Williams, soon after his return from 
Indian slavery and Jesuitical persecution in 1706-7, 
and has since passed through six editions, the last of 
which was published in the year 1800 ; consequently 
the book has been long out of print. 

It was my intention to have had an engraved like- 



iv 



PREFACE. 



ness of the Rev. Mr. Williams to accompany this work. 
His portrait, painted soon after his return from captiv- 
ity, is now in the hands of some of his descendants, 
but I have in vain endeavored to procure it for this 
purpose. I have been more fortunate in obtaining an 
excellent portrait of his son, the Rev. Dr. Stephen 
Williams, of Longmeadow, who was taken prisoner 
with his father, and whose Journal is published in the 
Appendix to this work. I have also the pleasure of 
presenting a plate of the old fort-house at Deerfield, 
where the captives were placed after the sacking of 
the town, and which has been recently torn down. It 
was about one hundred and sixty years old when it 
was demolished. The sills and other timbers were as 
sound as they were when the house was erected. The 
old door, filled with nails and gashed with Indian toma- 
hawks, is preserved, and still to be seen at the resi- 
dence of Henry K. Hoyt, Esq. 

Although in my notes I have not pretended to give a 
genealogical history of the descendants of the Rev. 
John Williams, yet as the Journal of his son, Stephen, 
and the extract from a Sermon relating to his daughter, 
Eunice, were arranged for an Appendix to this work, 
and inasmuch as the public journals are discussing the 
claims of Eleazer Williams, grandson of Eunice, as 
the Dauphin, I have not thought it out of place for me 
to introduce, at the close of the volume, some testi- 
mony bearing upon this question ; as some interesting 
facts respecting the history of Eleazer are personally 
known by me which may be interesting to the public ; 
and, moreover, as I regard him as my kinsman, and a 
descendant of the author of " The Redeemed Captive." 

STEPHEN W. WILLIAMS. 



Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1853. 



DEDICATION. 



TO HIS EXCELLENCY, 

JOSEPH DUDLEY, Esq., 

CAPTAIN GENERAL AND GOVERNOR IN CHIEF, IN AND OVER HER MAJESTY'S 
PROVINCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY, IN NEW ENGLAND, ETC. 

Sir, — It was a satirical answer, and deeply re- 
proachful to mankind, which the philosopher gave to 
that question, What soonest grows old ? replied, Thanks. 
The reproach of it would not be so sensible, were there 
not sensible demonstrations of the truth of it, in those 
that wear the character of the ingenious. Such as are 
at first surprised at, and seem to have no common rel- 
ish of divine goodness, yet too soon lose the impres- 
sion : " They sang God's praise, but soon forgat his 
works." That it should be thus with respect to our 
benefactors on earth, is contrary to the ingenuity of 
human nature ; but that our grateful remembrance of 
the signal favors of Heaven should soon be worn off 



vi 



DEDICATION. 



by time, is to the last degree criminal and unpardon- 
able. 

It would be unaccountable stupidity in me, not to 
maintain the most lively and awful sense of divine re- 
bukes, which the holy God has seen meet in spotless 
sovereignty to dispense to me, my family, and people, 
in delivering us into the hands of them that hated us, 
who led us into a strange land : " My soul hath these 
still in remembrance, and is humbled in me." How- 
ever, God has given us plentiful occasion to sing of 
mercy, as well as judgment. The wonders of Divine 
mercy, which we have seen in the land of our captiv- 
ity, and deliverance therefrom, cannot be forgotten 
without incurring the guilt of the blackest ingratitude. 

To preserve the memory of these, it has been thought 
advisable to publish a short account of some of those 
signal appearances of divine power and goodness for 
us ; hoping it may serve to excite the praise, faith, and 
hope of all that love God, and may peculiarly serve to 
cherish a grateful spirit, and to render the impressions 
of God's mighty works indelible on my heart, and on 
those who with me have seen the wonders of the Lord, 
and tasted of his salvation. That we may not fall 
under that heavy charge made against Israel of old, 
Psalm lxxviii. 11, 42. "They forgat his works, and 
the wonders he shewed them : They remembered not 
his hand, nor the day that he delivered them from the 
enemy." 



DEDICATION. 



vii 



And I cannot, Sir, but think it most agreeable to my 
duty .to God, our supreme redeemer, to mention your 
Excellency's name with honor, since Heaven has hon- 
ored you as the prime instrument in returning our cap- 
tivity. Sure I am, the laws of justice and gratitude 
(which are the laws of God) do challenge from us the 
most public acknowledgments of your uncommon sym- 
pathy with us, your children, in our bonds, expressed 
in all endearing methods of parental care and tender- 
ness. All your people are cherished under your wings, 
happy in your government ; and are obliged to bless 
God for you. And among your people, those who are 
immediately exposed to the outrages of the enemy, 
have peculiarly felt refreshment from the benign influ- 
ences of your wise and tender conduct, and are under 
the most sensible engagements to acknowledge your 
Excellency, under God, as the breath of their nostrils. 

Your uncommon sagacity and prudence in contriv- 
ing to loose the bonds of your captivated children ; 
your unwearied vigor and application, in pursuing them, 
to work our deliverance, can never be enough praised. 
It is most notorious that nothing was thought too diffi- 
cult by you to effect this design ; in that you readily 
sent your own son, Mr. William Dudley, to undergo 
the hazards and hardships of a tedious voyage, that this 
affair might be transacted with success ; which must 
not be forgotten, as an expression of your great solici- 



viii 



DEDICATION. 



tude and zeal to recover us from the tyranny and op- 
pression of our captivity. 

I doubt not but that the God whom herein you have 
served will remember and gloriously reward you ; 
and may Heaven long preserve you at our helm, a 
blessing so necessary for the tranquillity of this Prov- 
ince, in this dark and tempestuous season ; may the 
best of blessings from the Father of lights be showered 
down upon your person, family, and government ; 
which shall be the prayer of 

Your Excellency's most humble, 

Obedient, and dutiful servant, 

JOHN WILLIAMS. 

March 3d, 1706-7. 



THE 



REDEEMED CAPTIVE RETURNING TO ZION. 



The history I am going to write proves, that days of 
fasting and prayer, without reformation, will not avail 
to turn away the anger of God from a professing peo- 
ple ; and yet wknesseth how very advantageous gra- 
cious supplications are, to prepare particular Christians 
patiently to suffer the will of God, in very trying pub- 
lic calamities. For some of us, moved with fear, 
set apart a day of prayer, to ask of God either to 
spare, and save us from the hands of our enemies, or 
to prepare us to sanctify and honor him, in what way 
soever he should come forth towards us. The places 
of Scripture from whence we were entertained in the 
forenoon, were Gen. xxxii. 10, 11 : "I am not worthy 
of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, 
which thou hast showed unto thy servant : — Deliver 
me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from 
the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he will come 
and smite me, and the mother with the children.'" 
And in the afternoon, Gen. xxxii. 26 : " And he said, 
Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will 
not let thee go, except thou bless me." From which 
1 



10 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



we were called upon to spread the causes of fear, relat- 
ing to our own selves, or families, before God ; as 
also how it becomes us with an undeniable importunity 
to be following God, with earnest prayers for his bless- 
ing in every condition. And it is very observable, 
how God ordered our prayers in a peculiar manner, to 
be going up to him ; to prepare us, with a right Chris- 
tian spirit, to undergo, and endure suffering trials. 

Not long after, the holy and righteous God brought 
us under great trials, as to our persons and families, 
which put us under a necessity of spreading before 
him in a wilderness, the distressing dangers and calam- 
ities of our relations, yea, that called on us, notwith- 
standing seeming present frowns, to resolve, by his 
grace, not to be sent away without a blessing. Jacob 
in wrestling has the hollow of his thigh put out of joint, 
and it is said to him, " Let me go " : yet he is rather 
animated to a heroical Christian resolution to continue 
earnest for the blessing, than discouraged from asking. 

On Tuesday, the 29th of February, 1703-4, not 
long before break of day, the enemy came in like a 
flood upon us; our watch being unfaithful; — an evil, 
the awful effects of which, in the surprisal of our fort, 
should bespeak all watchmen to avoid, as they would 
not bring the charge of blood upon themselves. They 
came to my house in the beginning of the onset, and 
b)'" their violent endeavors to break open doors and 
windows, with axes and hatchets, awaked me out of 
sleep ; on which I leaped out of bed, and, running to- 
wards the do.or, perceived the enemy making their en- 
trance into the house. I called to awaken two soldiers 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



11 



in the chamber, and returning toward my bedside for 
my arms, the enemy immediately broke into the room, 
I judge to the number of twenty, with painted faces, 
and hideous acclamations. I reached up my hands to 
the bed-tester for my pistol, uttering a short petition to 
God, for everlasting mercies for me and mine, on 
account of the merits of our glorified Redeemer ; ex- 
pecting a present passage through the valley of the 
shadow of death ; saying in myself, as Isa. xxxviii. 10, 
11, " I said, in the cutting off of my days, I shall go 
to the gates of the grave : I am deprived of the residue 
of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the 
Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no 
more with the inhabitants of the world." Taking down 
my pistol, I cocked it, and put it to the breast of the 
first Indian that came up ; but my pistol missing fire, I 
was seized by three Indians, who disarmed me, and 
bound me naked, as 1 was in my shirt, and so I stood 
for near the space of an hour. Binding me, they told 
me they would carry me to Quebeck. My pistol miss- 
ing fire was an occasion of my life's being preserved ; 
since which I have also found it profitable to be crossed 
in my own will. The judgment of God did not long 
slumber against one of the three which took me, who 
was a captain, for by sunrising he received a mortal 
shot from my next neighbor's house ; who opposed so 
great a number of French and Indians as three hun- 
dred, and yet were no more than seven men in an un- 
garrisoned house. 

I cannot relate the distressing care I had for my dear 
wife, who had lain in but a few weeks before ; and for 
my poor children, family, and Christian neighbors. 



12 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



The enemy fell to rifling the house, and entered in 
great numbers into every room. I begged of God to 
remember mercy in the midst of judgment ; that he 
would so far restrain their wrath, as to prevent their 
murdering of us ; that we might have grace to glorify 
his name, whether in life or death ; and, as I was able, 
committed our state to God. The enemies who entered 
the house, were all of them Indians and Macquas, in- 
sulted over me awhile, holding up hatchets over my 
head, threatening to burn all I had ; but yet God, be- 
yond expectation, made us in a great measure to be 
pitied ; for though some were so cruel and barbarous 
as to take and carry to the door two of my children 
and murder them, as also a negro woman; yet they 
gave me liberty to put on my clothes, keeping me 
bound with a cord on one arm, till I put on my clothes 
to the other; and then changing my cord, they let me 
dress myself, and then pinioned me again. Gave lib- 
erty to my dear wife to dress herself and our remain- 
ing children. About sun an hour high, we were all 
carried out of the house, for a march, and saw many 
of the houses of my neighbors in flames, perceiving 
the whole fort, one house excepted, to be taken. Who 
can tell what sorrows pierced our souls, when we saw 
ourselves carried away from God's sanctuary, to go in- 
to a strange land, exposed to so many trials ; the jour- 
ney being at least three, hundred miles we were to 
travel ; the snow up to the knees, and we never inured 
to such hardships and fatigues ; the place we were to 
be carried to, a Popish country. Upon my parting 
from the town, they fired my house and barn. We 
were carried over the river, to the foot of the moun- 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



13 



tain, about a mile from my house, where we found a 
great number of our Christian neighbors, men, women, 
and children, to the number of an hundred, nineteen 
of which were afterward murdered by the way, and 
two starved to death, near Cowass, in a time of great 
scarcity, or famine, the savages underwent there. 
When we came to the foot of the mountain, they took 
away our shoes, and gave us in the room of them In- 
dian shoes, to prepare us for our travel. Whilst we 
were there, the English beat out a company that re- 
mained in the town, and pursued them to the river, kill- 
ing and wounding many of them ; but the body of the 
army being alarmed, they repulsed those few English 
that pursued them. 

I am not able to give you an account of the number 
of the enemy slain, but I observed after this fight no 
great, insulting mirth, as I expected ; and saw many 
wounded persons, and for several days together they 
buried of their party, and one of chief note among the 
Macquas. The Governor of Canada told me, his army 
had that success with the loss of but eleven men ; three 
Frenchmen, one of which was the lieutenant of the 
army, five Macquas, and three Indians. But after my 
arrival at Quebeck, I spake with an Englishman, who 
was taken in the last war, and of their religion ; who 
told me, they lost above forty, and that many were 
wounded : I replied, " The Governor of Canada said 
they lost but eleven men." He answered, " 'T is true 
that there were but eleven killed outright at the taking 
of the fort, but many others were wounded, among 
whom was the ensign of the French ; but," said he, 
" they had a fight in the meadow, and in both en- 



14 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



gagements they lost more than forty. Some of the 
soldiers, both French and Indians, then present, told 
me so," said he, adding, that the French always en- 
deavor to conceal the number of their slain. 

After this, we went up the mountain, and saw the 
smoke of the fires in the town, and beheld the awful 
desolations of Deerfield. And before we marched any 
farther, they killed a sucking child belonging to one of 
the English. There were slain by the enemy of the 
inhabitants of Deerfield, to the number of thirty-eight, 
besides nine of the neighboring towns.* We travelled 
not far the first day ; God made the heathen so to pity 
our children, that though they had several wounded 
persons of their own to carry upon their shoulders, for 
thirty miles, before they came to the river, yet they 
carried our children, incapable of travelling, in their 
arms, and upon their shoulders. When we came to 
our lodging place, the first night, they dug away the 
snow, and made some wigwams, cut down some small 
branches of the spruce-tree to lie down on, and gave 
the prisoners somewhat to eat ; but we had but little 
appetite. I was pinioned and bound down that night, 
and so I was every night whilst I was with the army. 
Some of the enemy who brought drink with them 
from the town fell to drinking, and in their drunken 
fit they killed my negro man, the only dead person I 
either saw at the town, or in the way. 

In the night an Englishman made his escape ; in 
the morning (March 1), I was called for, and ordered 
by the general to tell the English, that if any more 



* See Appendix and Notes. 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



15 



made their escape, they would burn the rest of the 
prisoners. He that took me was unwilling to let me 
speak with any of the prisoners, as we marched ; but 
on the morning of the second day, he being appointed 
to guard the rear, I was put into the hands of my other 
master, who permitted me to speak to my wife, when 
I overtook her, and to walk with her to help her in her 
journey. On the way, we discoursed of the happiness 
of those who had a right to an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens ; and God for a father 
and friend ; as also, that it was our reasonable duty 
quietly to submit to the will of God, and to say, " The 
will of the Lord be done." My wife told me her 
strength of body began to fail, and that I must expect 
to part with her; saying, she hoped God would pre- 
serve my life, and the life of some, if not of all our 
children with us; and commended to me, under God, 
the care of them. She never spake any discontented 
word as to what had befallen us, but with suitable ex- 
pressions justified God in what had happened. We 
soon made a halt, in which time my chief surviving 
master came up, upon which I was put upon marching 
with the foremost, and so made my last farewell of my 
dear wife, the desire of my eyes, and companion in 
many mercies and afflictions. Upon our separation 
from each other, we asked for each other grace suf- 
ficient for what God should call us to. After our be- 
ing parted from one another, she spent the few remain- 
ing minutes of her stay in reading the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; which she was wont personally every day to 
delight her soul in reading, praying, meditating on, by 
herself, in her closet, over and above what she heard 



16 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



out of them in our family worship. I was made to 
wade over a small river, and so were all the English, 
the water above knee deep, the stream very swift ; and 
after that to travel up a small mountain ; my strength 
was almost spent, before I came to the top of it. No 
sooner had I overcome the difficulty of that ascent, but 
I was permitted to sit down, and be unburdened of my 
pack. I sat pitying those who w 7 ere behind, and en- 
treated my master to let me go down and help my 
wife; but he refused, and would not let me stir from 
him. I asked each of the prisoners (as they passed by 
me) after her, and heard that, passing through the 
above-said river, she fell down, and was plunged over 
head and ears in the water ; after which she travelled 
not far, for at the foot of that mountain, the cruel and 
bloodthirsty savage who took her slew her with his 
hatchet at one stroke, the tidings of which were very 
awful. And yet such was the hard-heartedness of the 
adversary, that my tears were reckoned to me as a re- 
proach. My loss and the loss of my children was great ; 
our hearts were so filled with sorrow, that nothing but the 
comfortable hopes of her being taken away, in mercy 
to herself, from the evils we were to see, feel, and 
suffer under, (and joined to the assembly of the spirits 
of just men made perfect, to rest in peace, and joy 
unspeakable and full of glory, and the good pleasure 
of God thus to exercise us,) could have kept us from 
sinking under, at that time. That Scripture, Job i. 21, 
" Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked 
shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord 
hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord," — 
was brought to my mind, and from it, that an afflicting 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



17 



God was to be glorified ; with some other places of 
Scripture, to persuade to a patient bearing my afflic- 
tions. 

We were again called upon to march, with a far 
heavier burden on my spirits than on my back. I 
begged of God to overrule, in his providence, that the 
corpse of one so dear to me, and of one whose spirit 
he had taken to dwell with him in glory, might meet 
with a Christian burial, and not be left for meat to the 
fowls of the air and beasts of the earth ; a mercy that 
God graciously vouchsafed to grant. For God put it 
into the hearts of my neighbors, to come out as far as 
she lay, to take up her corpse, carry it to the town, 
and decently to bury it soon after. In our march they 
killed a sucking infant of one of my neighbors ; and 
before night a girl of about eleven years of age. I 
was made to mourn, at the consideration of my flock 
being, so far, a flock of slaughter, many being slain in 
the town, and so many murdered in so few miles from 
the town ; and from fears what we must yet expect, 
from such who delightfully imbrued their hands in the 
blood of so many of His people. When we came to 
our lodging place, an Indian captain from the east- 
ward spake to my master about killing me, and taking 
off my scalp. I lifted up my heart to God, to implore 
his grace and mercy in such a time of need ; and 
afterwards I told my master, if he intended to kill me, 
I desired he would let me know of it ; assuring him 
that my death, after a promise of quarter, would bring 
the guilt of blood upon him. He told me he would 
not kill me. We laid down and slept, for God sus- 
tained and kept us. 



IS 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



In the morning (March 2), we were all called be- 
fore the chief sachems of the Macquas and Indians, 
that a more equal distribution might be made of the 
prisoners among them. At my going from the wig- 
wam, my best clothing was taken from me. As I 
came nigh the place appointed, some of the captives 
met me, and told me, they thought the enemies were 
going to burn some of us, for they had peeled off the 
bark from several trees, and acted very strangely. To 
whom I replied, they could act nothing against us, but 
as they were permitted of God, and I was persuaded 
he would prevent such severities. When we came to 
the wigwam appointed, several of the captives were 
taken from their former masters, and put into the 
hands of others ; but I was sent again to my two 
masters who brought me from my house. 

In our fourth day's march (Friday, March 3), the 
enemy killed another of my neighbors, who, being near 
the time of travail, was wearied with her journey. 
When we came to the great river, the enemy took 
sleighs to draw their wounded, several of our children, 
and their packs, and marched a great pace. I travelled 
many hours in water up to the ankles. Near night I 
was very lame, having before my travel wrenched my 
ankle bone and sinews. I thought, and so did others, 
that I should not be able to hold out to travel far. 
I lifted up my heart to God, my only refuge, to remove 
my lameness, and carry me through, with my children 
and neighbors, if he judged it best ; however, I desired 
God would be with me in my great change, if he 
called me by such a death to glorify him ; and that he 
would take care of my children, and neighbors, and 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



19 



bless them ; and within a little space of time I was well 
of my lameness, to the joy of my friends, who saw so 
great an alteration in my travelling. 

On Saturday (March 4), the journey was long and 
tedious ; we travelled with such speed that four women 
were tired, and then slain by them who led them cap- 
tive. 

On the Sabbath day (March 5), we rested, and I 
was permitted to pray, and preach to the captives. 
The place of Scripture spoken from was Lam. i. 18 : 
" The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against his 
commandment : hear, I pray you, all people, and be- 
hold my sorrow : my virgins and my young men are 
gone into captivity." The enemy, who said to us, 
" Sing us one of Zion's songs," were ready, some of 
them, to upbraid us, because our singing was not so 
loud as theirs. When the Macquas and Indians were 
chief in power, we had this revival in our bondage, to 
join together in the worship of God, and encourage 
one another to a patient bearing the indignation of the 
Lord, till he should plead our cause. When we ar- 
rived at New France, we were forbidden praying one 
with another, or joining together in the service of God. 

The next day (Monday, March 6), soon after we 
marched, we had an alarm ; on which many of the 
English were bound : I was then near the front, and 
my master not with me, so I was not bound. This 
alarm was occasioned by some Indians shooting at 
geese that flew over them, which put them into a con- 
siderable consternation and fright. But after they 
came to understand that they were not pursued by the 
English, they boasted, that they would not come out 



20 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



after them, as they had boasted before we began our 
journey in the morning. They killed this day two 
women, who were so faint they could not travel. 

The next day (Tuesday, March 7), in the morning, 
before we travelled, one Mary Brooks, a pious young 
woman, came to the wigwam where I was, and told 
me she desired to bless God, who had inclined the 
heart of her master to let her come and take her fare- 
well of me. Said she, " By my falls on the ice yester- 
day, I injured myself, causing a miscarriage this night, 
so that I am not able to travel far ; I know they will 
kill me to-day; but," says she, " God has (praised be 
his name !) by his spirit, with his word, strengthened me 
to my last encounter with death " ; and so mentioned to 
me some places of Scripture seasonably sent in for 
her support. " And," says she, " I am not afraid of 
death ; I can, through the grace of God, cheerfully 
submit to his will. Pray for me," said she, at parting, 
" that God would take me to himself." Accordingly, 
she was killed that day. I mention it, to the end I may 
stir up all, in their young days, to improve the death of 
Christ by faith, to a giving them an holy boldness in 
the day of death. 

The next day (Wednesday, March 8), we were 
made to scatter one from another into smaller com- 
panies ; and one of my children was carried away 
with Indians belonging to the eastern parts. At night 
my master came to me, with my pistol in his hand, and 
put it to my breast, and said, " Now I will kill you, 
for," he said, u you would have killed me with it if 
you could." But by the grace of God, I was not much 
daunted, and whatever his intention might be, God pre- 
vented my death. 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



21 



The next day (Thursday, March 9), I was again 
permitted to pray with that company of captives with 
me, and we were allowed to sing a psalm together. 
After which, I was taken from all the company of the 
English, excepting two children of my neighbors, one 
of which, a girl of four years of age, was killed by her 
Macqua master the next morning (Friday, March 10) ; 
the snow being so deep when we left the river, that he 
could not carry the child and his pack too. 

When the Sabbath came (March 12), one Indian 
staid with me, and a little boy nine years old, while the 
rest went a hunting. And when I was here, I thought 
with myself that God had now separated me from the 
congregation of his people, who were now in his sanc- 
tuary, where he commandeth the blessing, even life 
for ever; and made me to bewail my unfruitfulness 
under, and unthankfulness for, such a mercy. When 
my spirit was almost overwhelmed within me at the 
consideration of what had passed over me and what 
was to be expected ; I was almost ready to sink under 
it ; but God spake those words with a greater efficacy 
than man could speak them, for my strengthening and 
support. Ps. cxviii. 17, " I shall not die, but live, and 
declare the words of the Lord." Ps. xlii. 11, "Why 
art thou cast down, O my soul ? and why art thou dis- 
quieted within me ? Hope thou in God ; for I shall yet 
praise him, who is the health of my countenance and 
my God." Neh. i. 8, 9, " Remember, I beseech thee, 
the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, say- 
ing, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among 
the nations ; but if ye turn unto me, and keep my com- 
mandments, and do them, though there were of you 



22 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will 
I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto 
the place that I have chosen, to set my name there." 
These three places of Scripture, one after another, by 
the grace of God, strengthened my hopes that God 
would so far restrain the wrath of the adversary that 
the greatest number of us left alive should be carried 
through so tedious a journey ; that though my children 
had no father to take care of them, that word quieted 
me to a patient waiting to see the end the Lord would 
make. Jer. xlix. 11, "Leave thy fatherless children, 
I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in 
me." Accordingly, God carried them wonderfully 
through great difficulties and dangers. My youngest 
daughter, aged seven years, was carried all the jour- 
ney, and looked after with a great deal of tenderness. 
My youngest son, aged four years, was wonderfully 
preserved from death ; for though they that carried 
him or drawed him on sleighs were tired with their 
journeys, yet their savage, cruel tempers were so over- 
ruled by God that they did not kill him, but in their 
pity he was spared, and others would take care of him ; 
so that four times on the journey he was thus pre- 
served, till at last he arrived in Montreal, where a 
French gentleman, pitying the child, redeemed it out 
of the hands of the heathen. My son Samuel and my 
eldest daughter were pitied so as to be drawn on sleighs 
when unable to travel ; and though they suffered very 
much through scarcity of food and tedious journeys, 
they were carried through to Montreal : and my son 
Stephen, about eleven years of age, wonderfully pre- 
served from death in the famine whereof three English 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



23 



persons died, and after eight months brought into 
Shamblee. 

My master returned on the evening of the Sabbath 
(March 12), and told me he had killed five moose. 
The next day (Monday, March 13), we were removed 
to the place where he killed them. We tarried there 
three days, till we had roasted and dried the meat. 
My master made me a pair of snow-shoes ; " For," said 
he, "you cannot possibly travel without, the snow be- 
ing knee-deep."" We parted from thence heavy laden. 
I travelled, with a burden on my back, with snow-shoes, 
twenty-five miles the first day of wearing them ; and 
again the next day till afternoon, and then we came to 
the French river. My master at this place took away 
my pack, and drew the whole load on the ice ; but my 
bones seemed to be misplaced, and I unable to travel 
with any speed. My feet were very sore, and each 
night I wrung blood out of my stockings when I pulled 
them off. My shins also were very sore, being cut 
with crusty snow in time of my travelling without 
snow-shoes. But finding some dry oak-leaves by the 
river-banks, I»put them to my shins, and in once apply- 
ing them they were healed. And here my master was 
very kind to me, — would always give me the best he 
had to eat : and, by the goodness of God, I never 
wanted a meal's meat during my captivity ; though 
some of my children and neighbors were greatly 
wounded (as I may say) with the arrows of famine 
and pinching want, having for many days nothing but 
roots to live upon, and not much of them neither. My 
master gave me a piece of a Bible ; never disturbed 
me in reading the Scriptures, or in praying to God. 



24 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



Many of my neighbors, also, found that mercy in their 
journey, to have Bibles, psalm-books, catechisms, and 
good books put into their hands, with liberty to use 
them ; and yet, after their arrival at Canada, all possi- 
ble endeavors were used to deprive them of them. 
Some say their Bibles were demanded by the French 
priests, and never redelivered to them, to their great 
grief and sorrow. 

My march on the French river was very sore, for, 
fearing a thaw, we travelled a very great pace ; my 
feet were so bruised, and my joints so distorted by my 
travelling in snow-shoes, that I thought it impossible to 
hold out. One morning a little before break of day 
my master came and awaked me out of sleep, saying, 
"Arise, pray to God, and eat your breakfast, for we 
must go a great way to-day." After prayer, I arose 
from my knees, but my feet were so tender, swollen, 
bruised, and full of pain, that I could scarce stand upon 
them without holding by the wigwam. And when the 
Indians said, " You must run to-day," I answered I 
could not run. My master pointed out his hatchet ; 
said to me, "Then I must dash out your brains and 
take off your scalp." I said, "I suppose, then, you 
will do so, for I am not able to travel with speed." He 
sent me away alone, on the ice. About sun half an 
hour high he overtook me, for I had gone very slowly, 
not thinking it possible to travel five miles. When he 
came up, he called me to run ; I told him I could go no 
faster. He passed by without saying one word more : 
so that sometimes I scarce saw any thing of him for an 
hour together. I travelled from about break of day till 
dark, never so much as sat down at noon to eat warm 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



25 



victuals, — eating frozen meat, which I had in my coat- 
pocket, as I travelled. We went that day two of their 
days' journey as they came down. I judge we went 
forty or forty-five miles that day. God wonderfully sup- 
ported me, and so far renewed my strength, that in the 
afternoon I was stronger to travel than in the forenoon. 
My strength was restored and renewed to admiration. 
We should never distrust the care and compassion of 
God, who can give strength to them who have no 
might, and power to them who are ready to faint. 

When we entered on the lake, the ice was rough and 
uneven, which was very grievous to my feet, that 
could scarce bear to be set down on the smooth ice on 
the river. I lifted up my cry to God in ejaculatory re- 
quests, that he would take notice of my state, and some 
way or other relieve me. I had not marched above 
half a mile before there fell a moist snow, about an inch 
and a half deep, that made it very soft for my feet to 
pass over the lake to the place where my master's fam- 
ily was. Wonderful favors in the midst of trying af- 
flictions ! We went a day's journey from the lake, to 
a small company of Indians who were hunting. They 
were, after their manner, kind to me, and gave me the 
best they had, which was moose-flesh, ground-nuts, 
and cranberries, but no bread : for three weeks to- 
gether I ate no bread. After our stay there, 'and un- 
dergoing difficulties in cutting wood, and suffering by 
lousiness, having lousy old clothes of soldiers put upon 
me when they stript me of mine, to sell to the French 
soldiers in the army, we again began a march for 
Shamblee. We stayed at a branch of the lake, and 
feasted two or three days on geese we killed there. 
2 



26 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



After another day's travel, we came to a river where 
the ice was thawed. We made a canoe of elm-bark 
in one day ; and arrived on a Saturday * near <ioon at 
Shamblee, a small village where is a garrison and fort 
of French soldiers. 

AT SHAMBLEE. 

This village is about fifteen miles from Montreal. 
The French were very kind to me. A gentleman of 
the place took me into his house and to his table, and 
lodged me at night on a good feather-bed. The inhab- 
itants and officers were very obliging to me the little 
time I stayed with them, and promised to write a letter 
to the Governor-in-chief to inform him of my passing 
down the river. Here I saw a girl taken from our 
town, and a young man, who informed me that the 
greatest part of the captives were come in, and that two 
of my children were at Montreal ; that many of the 
captives had been in, three weeks before my arrival. 
Mercy in the midst of judgment ! As we passed along 
the river towards Sorel, we went into a house where 
was an English woman of our town, who had been 
left among the French in order to her conveyance to 
the Indian fort. The French were very kind to her 
and to myself, and gave us the best provision they had ; 
and she embarked with us to go down to St. Francis 
fort. When we came down to the first inhabited 
house at Sorel. a French woman came to the river- 
side and desired us to go into her house ; and when we 



* Suppose March 25. 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



27 



were entered, she compassioned our state, and told us 
she had in the last war been a captive among the In- 
dians, and therefore was not a little sensible of our diffi- 
culties. She gave the Indians something to eat in the 
chimney-corner, and spread a cloth on the table for 
us with napkins ; which gave such offence to the In- 
dians, that they hasted away and w'buld not call in at 
the fort. But wherever we entered into houses, the 
French were very courteous. When we came to 
St. Francis River we found some difficulty by reason 
of the ice ; and entering into a Frenchman's house, he 
gave us a loaf of bread and some fish to carry away 
with us ; but we passed down the river till night, and 
there seven of us supped on a fish called bullhead or 
pout, and did not eat it up, the fish was so very large. 

The next morning we met with such a great quan- 
tity of ice, that we were forced to leave our canoe and 
travel on land. We went to a French officer's house, 
who took us into a private room, out of the sight of the 
Indians, and treated us very courteously. That night 
we arrived at the fort called St. Francois ; where we 
found several poor children who had been taken from 
the Eastward the summer before ; a sight very affect- 
ing, they being in habit very much like Indians, and in 
manners very much symbolizing with them. At this 
fort lived two Jesuits, one of which was made Superior 
of the Jesuits at Quebeck. One of these Jesuits met 
me at the fort gate, and asked me to go into the church 
and give God thanks for preserving my life. I told 
him I would do that in some other place. When the 
bell rang for evening prayers, he that took me bid me 
go, but I refused. The Jesuit came to our wigwam 



28 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



and prayed a short prayer, and invited me to snp with 
them, and justified the Indians in what they did against 
us, rehearsing some things done by Major Walden 
above thirty years ago, and how justly God retaliated 
them in the last war, and inveighed agains! us for be- 
ginning this war with the Indians, and said we had be- 
fore the last winter and in the winter been very barba- 
rous and cruel in burning and killing Indians. I told 
them that the Indians, in a very perfidious manner, had 
committed murders on many of our inhabitants after 
the signing articles of peace ; and as to what they 
spake of cruelties, they were undoubtedly falsehoods, 
for I well knew the English were not approvers of any 
inhumanity or barbarity towards enemies. They said 
an Englishman had killed one of St. Casteen's rela- 
tions, which occasioned this war ; for, say they, the 
nations, in a general council, had concluded not to en- 
gage in the war on any side till they themselves were 
first molested, and then all of them as one would en- 
gage against them that began a war with them ; and 
that upon the killing of Casteen's kinsman a post was 
despatched to Canada to advertise the Macquas and 
Indians that the English had begun a war ; on which 
they gathered up their forces, and that the French 
joined with them to come down on the Eastern parts ; 
and that when they came near New England, several 
of the Eastern Indians told them of the peace made 
with the English, and the satisfaction given them from 
the English for that murder ; but the Macquas told 
them it was now too late, for they were sent for and 
were now come, and would fall on them if without their 
consent they made a peace with the English. Said 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



29 



also, that a letter was shown to them from the Gover- 
nor of Port Royal, which, he said, was taken in an 
English ship, being a letter from the Queen of Eng- 
land to our Governor, writing how she approved his 
designs to ensnare and deceitfully seize on the Indians ; 
so that being enraged from that letter, and being forced, 
as it were, they began the present war. I told them 
the letter was a lie, forged by the French. 

The next morning the bell rang for mass. My mas- 
ter bid me go to church ; I refused ; he threatened me, 
and went away in a rage. At noon the Jesuit sent for 
me to dine with them, for I ate at their table all the 
time I was at the fort ; and after dinner they told me 
the Indians would not allow of any of their captives 
staying in their wigwams whilst they were at church, 
and were resolved by force and violence to bring us 
all to church if we would not go without. I told them 
it was highly unreasonable so to impose upon those 
who were of a contrary religion, and to force us to be 
present at such a service as we abhorred, was nothing 
becoming Christianity. They replied, they were sav- 
ages, and would not hearken to reason, but would have 
their wills. Said also, if they were in New England 
themselves, they would go into their churches and see 
their ways of worship. I answered, the case was far 
different, for there was nothing (themselves being 
judges) as to matter or manner of worship but what 
was according to the word of God in our churches, and 
therefore it could not be an offence to any man's con- 
science. But among them there were idolatrous su- 
perstitions in worship. They said, " Come and see, 
and offer us conviction of what is superstitious in wor- 



30 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



ship. 1 ' To which I answered, that I was not to do evil 
that good might come of it, and that forcing in matters 
of religion was hateful. They answered, "The In- 
dians are resolved to have it so, and they could not 
pacify them without my coming ; and they would en- 
gage they should offer no force or violence to cause 
any compliance with their ceremonies." The next 
mass, my master bid me go to church. I objected; he 
rose and forcibly pulled me by my head and shoulders 
out of the wigwam to the church, which was nigh the 
door. So I went in and sat down behind the door : and 
there saw a great confusion, instead of any Gospel 
order; for one of the Jesuits was at the altar saying 
mass in a tongue unknown to the savages, and the 
other, between the altar and the door, saying and sing- 
ing prayers among the Indians at the same time ; and 
many others were at the same time saying over their 
Pater-nosters and Ave Mary by tale from their chapelit, 
or beads on a string. At our going out we smiled at 
their devotion so managed, which was offensive to 
them, for they said we made a derision of their wor- 
ship. When I was here a certain savagess died. One 
of the Jesuits told me she was a very holy woman, who 
had not committed one sin in twelve years. After a 
day or two the Jesuits asked me what I thought of their 
way now I saw it. I told them I thought Christ said of 
it, as Mark vii. 7, 8, 9, " Howbeit, in vain do they wor- 
ship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of 
men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye 
hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and 
cups ; and many other such like things ye do. And 
he said unto them, Full well ye reject the command- 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



31 



ment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." 
They told me they were not the commandments of 
men, but apostolical traditions, of equal authority with 
the Holy Scriptures ; and that after my death I would 
bewail my not praying to the Virgin Mary, and that I 
should find the want of her intercession for me with her 
Son ; judging me to hell for asserting the Scriptures to 
be a perfect rule of faith ; and said I abounded in my 
own sense, entertaining explications contrary to the 
sense of the Pope, regularly sitting with a General 
Council, explaining Scripture and making articles of 
faith. I told them it was my comfort that Christ was 
to be my judge, and not they, at the great day ; and 
as for their censuring and judging me, 1 was not moved 
with it. 

One day a certain savagess taken prisoner in Phil- 
ip's war, who had lived at Mr. Bulkley's at Weathers- 
field, called Ruth, who could speak English very well 
and who had been often at my house, being now pros- 
elyted to the Romish faith, came into the wigwam, and 
with her an English maid who was taken in the last 
war. She was dressed in Indian apparel, and was un- 
able to speak one word of English. She could neither 
tell her own name nor the name of the place from 
whence she was taken. These two talked in the In- 
dian dialect with my master a long time ; after which 
my master bade me cross myself; I told him I would 
not ; he commanded me several times, and I as often 
refused. Ruth said, "Mr. Williams, you know the 
Scripture, and therefore act against your own light ; 
for you know the Scripture saith, 4 Servants, obey 
your masters ' ; he is your master and you his ser- 



32 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



vant." I told her she was ignorant and knew not the 
meaning of the Scripture ; telling her I was not to dis- 
obey the great God to obey my master, and that I was 
ready to die and suffer for God if called thereto. 
On which she talked with my master : I suppose she 
interpreted what I said. My master took hold of my 
hand to force me to cross myself, but I struggled with 
him, and would not suffer him to guide my hand. 
Upon this he pulled off a crucifix from off his own neck, 
and bade me kiss it ; but I refused once and again. 
He told me he would dash out my brains with his 
hatchet if I refused. I told him I should sooner choose 
death than to sin against God. Then he ran and took 
up his hatchet and acted as though he would have 
dashed out my brains. Seeing I was not moved, he 
threw down his hatchet, saying he would bite off all my 
nails if I still refused. I gave him my hand and told 
him I was ready to suffer : he set his teeth in my 
thumb-nail and gave a gripe, and then said, " No 
good minister, no love God, as bad as the Devil," and 
so left off. I have reason to bless God, who strength- 
ened me to withstand. By this he was so discouraged, 
as never more to meddle with me about my religion. 
I asked leave of the Jesuits to pray with those English 
of our town that were with me ; but they absolutely re- 
fused to give us any permission to pray one with an- 
other, and did what they could to prevent our having 
any discourse together. 

After a few days the Governor De Vaudrel, Governor- 
in-chief, sent down two men with letters to the Jesuits, 
desiring them to order my being sent up to him to 
Montreal, upon which one of the Jesuits went with my 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



33 



two masters, and took me along with them, as also two 
more from Deerfield, a man and his daughter about 
seven years of age. When we came to the lake, the 
wind was tempestuous and contrary to us, so that they 
were afraid to go over; they landed and kindled a fire, 
and said they would wait awhile to see whether the 
wind would fall or change. I went aside from the 
company among the trees, and spread our case, with 
the temptations of it, before God, and pleaded that he 
would order the season so that we might not go back 
again, but be furthered on our voyage, that I might 
have opportunity to see my children and neighbors, 
and converse with them, and know their state. When 
I returned, the wind was more boisterous, and then a 
second time, and the wind was more fierce. I reflected 
upon myself for my unquietness, and the want of a 
resigned will to the will of God ; and a third time 
went and bewailed before God my anxious cares, and 
the tumultuous working of my own heart, begged a will 
fully resigned to the will of God, and thought that by 
his grace I was brought to say amen to whatever God 
should determine. Upon my return to the company 
the wind was yet high ; the Jesuit and my master said, 
" Come, we will go back again to the fort ; for there is 
no likelihood of proceeding in our voyage, for very 
frequently such a wind continues three days, some- 
times six, after it continued so many hours." I said 
to them, " The will of the Lord be done " ; and the 
canoe was put again into the river, and we embarked. 
No sooner had my master put me into the canoe, and 
put off from the shore, but the wind fell, and coming 
into the middle of the river, they said, 44 We may go 



34 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



over the lake well enough " ; and so we did. I prom- 
ised, if God gave me opportunity, I would stir up 
others to glorify God in a continued persevering, com- 
mitting their straits of heart to him : he is a prayer- 
hearing God, and the stormy winds obey him. After 
we passed over the lake, the French, wherever we 
came, were very compassionate to us. 

AT MONTREAL. 

When I came to Montreal, which was eight weeks* 
after my captivity, the Governor, De Vaudrel, re- 
deemed me out of the hands of the Indians, gave me 
good clothing, took me to his table, gave me the use of 
a very good chamber ; and was, in all respects relating 
to my outward man, courteous and charitable to ad- 
miration. At my first entering into his house, he sent 
for my two children, who were in the city, that I might 
see them ; and promised to do what he could to get all 
my children and neighbors out of the hands of the 
savages. My change of diet, after the difficulties of 
my journeys, caused an alteration in my body : I was 
physicked, and blooded, and very tenderly taken care 
of in my sickness. The Governor redeemed my eldest 
daughter out of the hands of the Indians ; and she was 
carefully tended in the hospital, until she was well of 
her lameness ; and by the Governor provided for re- 
spectfully, during her stay in the country. My young- 
est child was redeemed by a gentlewoman in the 
city, as the Indians passed by. After the Indians 



* Tuesday, April 25. 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



35 



had been at their fort, and discoursed with the priests, 
they came back and offered to the gentlewoman a man 
for the child, alleging that the child could not be prof- 
itable to her, but the man would, for he was a weaver, 
and his service would much advance the design she 
had of making^ cloth ; but God overruled so far, that 
this temptation to the woman prevailed not for an ex- 
change ; for had the child gone to the Indian fort, in 
an ordinary way it had abode there still, as the other 
children now do. The Governor gave orders to certain 
officers to get the rest of my children out of the hands 
of the Indians, and as many of my neighbors as they 
could. After six weeks, a merchant of the city ob- 
tained my eldest son, that was taken, to live with him. 
He took a great deal of pains to persuade the savages 
to part with him. An Indian came to the city (Saga- 
rrrore George of Pennacook) from Cowass, and brought 
word of my son Stephen's being near that place ; some 
money was put into his hand for his redemption, and a 
promise of full satisfaction if he brought him ; but the 
Indian proved unfaithful, and I never saw my child till 
a year after. 

The Governor ordered a priest to go along with me 
to see my youngest daughter among the Macquas, and 
endeavor for her ransom. I went with him ; he was 
very courteous to me, and from his parish, which was 
near the Macqua fort, he wrote a letter to the Jesuit, to 
desire him to send my child to see me, and to speak 
with them that took her, to come also. But the Jesuit 
wrote back a letter, that I should not be permitted to 
speak with or see my child, and if I came my labor 
would be lost ; and that the Macquas would as soon 



36 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



part with their hearts as my child. At my return to 
the city, I with a heavy heart carried the Jesuit's letter 
to the Governor, who, when he read it, was very angry, 
and endeavored to comfort me, assuring me I should 
see her, and speak with her ; and he would do his ut- 
most endeavor for her ransom. Accordingly he sent 
to the Jesuits who were in the city, and bid them im- 
prove their interest for the obtaining the child. After 
some days, he went with me in his own person to the 
fort. When we came thither, he discoursed with the 
Jesuits. After which my child was brought into tiie 
chamber where I was. I was told I might speak with 
her, but should not be permitted to speak to any other 
English person there. My child was about seven years 
old ; I discoursed with her near an hour ; she could 
read very well, and had not forgotten her Catechism ; 
and was very desirous to be redeemed out of the hands 
of the Macquas, and bemoaned her state among them, 
telling me how they profaned God's Sabbath, and said, 
she thought that, a few days before, they had been 
mocking the Devil, and that one of the Jesuits stood 
and looked on them. I told her, she must pray to God 
for his grace every day ; she said, she did as she was 
able, and God helped her. " But," says she, " they 
force me to say some prayers in .Latin, but I don't 
understand one word of them ; I hope it won't do me 
any harm." I told her she must be careful she did not 
forget her Catechism and the Scriptures she had learnt 
by heart. She told the captives after I was gone, as 
some of them have since informed me, almost every 
thing I spake to her ; and said she was much afraid 
she should forget her Catechism, having none to in- 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



37 



struct her. I saw her once a few days after in the 
city, but had not many minutes of time with her ; what 
time I had I improved to give her the best advice I 
could. The Governor labored much for her redemp- 
tion : at last he had the promise of it, in case he would 
procure for them an Indian girl in her stead. Accord- 
ingly he sent up the river some hundred of leagues for 
one, and when ofFered by the Governor it was refused. 
He offered then an hundred pieces of eight for her re- 
demption, but it was refused. His lady went over to 
have begged her from them, but all in vain ; she is 
there still ; and has forgotten to speak English. O 
that all who peruse this history would join in their 
fervent requests to God, with whom all things are pos- 
sible, that this poor child, and so many others of our 
children who have been cast upon God from the womb, 
and are now outcasts ready to perish, might be gath- 
ered from their dispersions, and receive sanctifying 
grace from God ! 

When I had discoursed with the child, and was com- 
ing out of the fort, one of the Jesuits went out of the 
chamber with me, and some soldiers to convey me to 
the canoe. I saw some of my poor neighbors, who 
stood with longing expectations to see me, and speak 
with me, and had leave from their savage masters so 
to do. I was by the Jesuit himself thrust along by 
force, and permitted only to tell them some of their re- 
lations they asked after were well in the city, and that 
with a very audible voice ; being not permitted to 
come near to them. 

After my return to the city, I was very melancholy, 
for I could not be permitted so much as to pray with 



38 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



the English who dwelt in the same house ; and the 
English who came to see me were most of them put 
back by the guard at the door, and not suffered to come 
and speak with me. Sometimes the guard was so 
strict, that I could scarce go aside on necessary occa- 
sions without a repulse ; and whenever I went out into 
the city (a favor the Governor himself never refused 
when I asked it of him) there were spies to watch me 
and to observe whether I spake to the English. Upon 
which I told some of the English they must be careful 
to call to mind and improve former instructions, and 
endeavor to stand at a further distance for a while, 
hoping that after a short time I should have more lib- 
erty of conversing with them. But some spies sent 
out found on a Sabbath day more than three of us in 
company together, the number we, by their order pub- 
lished, were not to exceed, who informed the priest. 
The next day one of the priests told me I had a great- 
er number of the English with me, and that 1 had 
spoken something reflecting on their religion. I spake 
to the Governor that no 'forcible means might be used 
with any of'the captives respecting their religion. He 
told me he allowed no such thing. I am persuaded 
that the Governor, if he might act for himself, would 
not have suffered such things to be done as have been 
done, and that he never 'did know of several things 
acted against the English. 

At my first coming to Montreal, the Governor told 
me I should be sent home as soon as Captain Battis 
was returned, and not before ; and that I was taken in 
order to his redemption. The Governor sought by all 
means to divert me from my melancholy sorrows, and 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



39 



always showed a willingness for my seeing my chil- 
dren. One day I told him of my design of walking 
into the city : he pleasantly answered, " Go with all 
my heart." His eldest son went with me as far as the 
door, and saw the guard stop me. He went and in- 
formed his father, who came to the door and asked 
why they affronted the gentleman going out. They said 
it was their order. But with an angry countenance 
he said his orders were that I should not be stopped. 
But within a little time I had orders to go down to 
Quebeck. Another thing showed that many things are 
done without the Governor's coYisent, though his name 
be used to justify them ; viz., I asked the priest, after 
I had been at Montreal two days, leave to go and see 
my youngest child. He said, " Whenever you would 
see her, tell me, and I will bring her to you ; for," says 
he, " the Governor is not willing you should go thith- 
er." And yet, not many days after, when we were 
at dinner, the Governor's lady (seeing me sad) spake 
to an officer at table who could speak Latin to tell me 
that after dinner I should go along with them and see 
my two children. And accordingly after dinner I was 
carried to see them ; and when I came to the house, I 
found three or four English captives who lived there, 
and I had leave to discourse with them. And not long 
after, the Governor's lady asked me to go along with 
her to the hospital to see one of my neighbors who 
was sick there. 

One day one of the Jesuits came to the Governor 
and told the company there that he never saw such 
persons as were taken from Deerfield. Said he, " The 
Macquas will not suffer any of their prisoners to abide 



40 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



in their wigwams whilst they themselves are at mass, 
but carry them with them to the church, and they can- 
not be prevailed with to fall down on their knees to 
pray there ; but no sooner are they returned to their 
wigwams, but they fall down on their knees to prayer." 
He said they could do nothing with the grown persons 
there, and they hindered the children's complying. 
Whereupon the Jesuits counselled the Macquas to sell 
all the grown persons from the fort; a stratagem to 
seduce poor children. O Lord, turn the counsels of 
these Ahithophels into foolishness, and make the coun- 
sels of the heathens of none effect ! 

Here I observed they were wonderfully lifted up 
with pride after the return of Captain Montinug from 
Northampton with news of success. They boasted of 
their success against New England. And they sent 
out an army, as they said, of seven hundred men, if I 
mistake not, two hundred of which were French, in 
company of which army went several Jesuits, and said 
they would lay desolate all the places on the Connect- 
icut River. The Superior of the priests told me their 
general was a very prudent and brave commander, of 
undaunted courage, and he doubted not but they should 
have great success. This army went away in such a 
boasting, triumphing manner, that I had great hopes 
God would discover and disappoint their designs. Our 
prayers were not wanting for the blasting of such a 
bloody design. The Superior of the priests said to me, 
" Do not flatter yourselves in hopes of a short captiv- 
ity ; for," said he, " there are two young princes con- 
tending for the kingdom of Spain " ; and for a third, that 
care was to be taken of his establishment on the Eng- 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



41 



lish throne : and boasted what they would do in Eu- 
rope ; and that we must expect, not only in Europe, but 
in New England, the establishment of Popery. I said, 
" Glory not ; God can make great changes in a little 
time, and revive his own interest, and yet save his poor, 
afflicted people." Said he, " The time for miracles is 
past ; and in the time of the last war the King of 
France was as it were against all the world, and yet 
did very great things ; but now the kingdom of Spain 
is for him, and the Duke of Bavaria, and the Duke of 
Savoy," &c. ; and spake in a lofty manner of great 
things to be done by them, and having the world, as I 
may say, in subjection to them. 

I was sent down to Quebeck in company of Gover- 
nor De Ramsey, Governor of Montreal, and the Supe- 
rior of the Jesuits, and ordered to live with one of the 
Council ; from whom I received many favors, for seven 
weeks. He told me it was the priests' doings to send 
me down before the Governor came down ; and that if 
I went much to see the English, or they came much 
to visit me, I should yet certainly be sent away, 
where I should have no conversation with the Eng- 
lish. 

AT QUEBECK. 

After coming down to Quebeck, I was invited to dine 
with the Jesuits: and to my face they were civil 
enough. But after a few days a young gentleman came 
to my chamber and told me that one of the Jesuits 
(after we had done dinner) made a few districks of 
verses, and gave them to his scholars to translate into 
3 



42 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



French. He showed them to me. The import of 
them was, that the King of France's grandson had sent 
out his huntsmen, and that they had taken a wolf, who 
was shut up, and now he hopes the sheep would be in 
safety. I knew at the reading of them what they 
aimed at, but held my peace, as though I had been ig- 
iiorant of the Jesuits' intention. Observing this re- 
proaching spirit, I said in my heart, " If God will bless, 
let men curse if they please " ; and I looked to God in 
Christ, the great Shepherd, to keep his scattered sheep 
among so many Romish ravenous wolves, and to re- 
member the reproaches wherewith his holy name, ordi- 
nances, and servants were daily reproached. And 
upon an observation of the time of these verses being 
composed, I find 'that near the same time the Bishop 
of Canada with twenty ecclesiastics were taken by the 
English as they were coming from France, and car- 
ried into England as prisoners of war. 

One Sabbath-day morning I observed many signs of 
approaching rain, — a great moisture on the stones of 
the hearth and chimney-jams. I was that day invited 
to dine with the Jesuits ; and when I went up to dinner 
it began to rain a small, drizzling rain. The Superior 
told me they had been praying for rain that morning, 
41 and lo," says he, " it begins to rain ! " I told him I 
could tell him of many instances of God's hearing our 
prayers for rain. However, in the afternoon there was 
a general procession of all orders, — priests, Jesuits, 
and friars, — and the citizens in great pomp, carrying 
(as they said), as an holy relic, one of the bones of St. 
Paul. The next day I was invited to the priests' Sem- 
inary to dinner. " O," said they, " we went in proces- 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



43 



sion yesterday for rain, and see what a plentiful rain 
followed!" I answered, "We bad been answered 
when praying for rain when no such signs of rain or 
the beginnings of rain had preceded, as now with them, 
before they appointed or began their procession," &c. 
However, they upbraided me that God did not approve 
of our religion, in that he disregarded our prayers and 
accepted theirs. " For," said they, " we heard you had 
days of fasting and prayer before the fleet carne to 
Quebeck. God would not regard your prayers, but 
heard ours, and, almost in a miraculous way, preserved 
us when assaulted, and refused to hear your fast-day 
prayers for your preservation, but heard ours for your 
desolation and our success." They boasted also of 
their king and his greatness, and spake of him as 
though there could be no settlement in the world but 
as he pleased ; reviling us as in a low and languishing 
case, having no king, but being under the government 
of a queen ; and spake as though the Duke- of Bavaria 
would in a short time be Emperor. From this day for- 
ward God gave them to hear sorrowful tidings from 
Europe; that a war had been commenced against the 
Duke of Savoy, and so their enemies increased ; that 
their bishop was taken, and two millions of wealth with 
him. News every year more distressing and impover- 
ishing to them ; and the Duke of Bavaria so far from 
being Emperor that he was dispossessed of his duke- 
dom ; and France so far from being strengthened by 
Spain, that the' kingdom of Spain was like to be an oc- 
casion of weakening and impoverishing their own king- 
dom ; they themselves so reporting. And their great 
army going against New England turned back ashamed ; 



44 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



and they discouraged and disheartened, and every 
year very exercising fears and cares as to the sav- 
ages who lived up the river. Before the return of that 
army, they told me we were led up and down and sold 
by the heathens as sheep for the slaughter, and they 
could not devise what they should do with us, we 
should be so many prisoners when the army returned. 
The Jesuits told me it was a great mercy that so many 
of our children were brought to them, and that now, 
especially since they were not like speedily to be re- 
turned, there was hope of their being brought over to 
the Romish faith. They would take the English chil- 
dren born among them, and, against the consent of 
their parents, baptize them. One Jesuit came to me 
and asked whether all the English at Loret (a place 
not far from Quebeck, where the savages lived) were 
baptized. I told him they were. He said, "If they 
be not, let me know of it, that I may baptize them, for 
fear they should die, and be damned if they die with- 
out baptism." Says he, " When the savages went 
against you, I charged them to baptize all children be- 
fore they killed them ; such was my desire of your 
eternal salvation, though you were our enemies." 
There was a gentleman, called Monsieur de Beauville, 
a captain, the brother of the Lord Intendant, who was 
a good friend to me and very courteous to all the cap- 
tives ; he lent me an English Bible, and when he went 
to France gave it to me. 

All means were used to seduce poor souls. I was 
invited one day to dine with one of chief -note. As I 
was going, I met with the Superior of the Jesuits com- 
ing out of the house, and he came in after dinner ; and 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



45 



presently it was propounded to me, if I would stay 
among them and be of their religion I should have a 
great and honorable pension from the king every year. 
The Superior of the Jesuits turned to me and said : 
" Sir, you have manifested much grief and sorrow for 
your separation from so many of your neighbors and 
children : if you will now comply with this offer and 
proposal, you may have all your children with you ; and 
here will be enough for an honorable maintenance for 
you and them." I answered : " Sir, if I thought your 
religion to be true, I would embrace it freely without 
any such offer ; but so long as I believe it to be what 
it is, the offer of the whole world is of no more value 
to me than a blackberry " ; and manifested such an 
abhorrence of this proposal, that I speedily went to take 
my leave and begone. " O, Sir," said he, " sit down ; 
— why in such a hurry? You are alone in your 
chamber; divert yourself a little longer"; and fell to 
other discourse. And within half an hour says again : 
" Sir, I have one thing earnestly to request of you ; I 
pray you pleasure me." I said, " Let your Lordship 
speak." Said he, " I pray come to the palace to-mor- 
row morning, and honor me with your company in my 
coach to the great church, it being then a saint's day." 
I answered, " Ask me any thing wherein I can serve 
you with a good conscience, and I am ready to gratify 
you ; but I must ask your excuse here " ; and imme- 
diately went away from him. Returning to my cham- 
ber, I gave God thanks for his upholding me ; and also 
made an inquiry with myself, whether I had by any 
action given encouragement for such a temptation. 



46 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



AT CHATEAU VICHE (fifteen miles below Quebeck). 

Not many days after, and a few days before Gover- 
nor De Vaudrel's coming down, I was sent away fifteen 
miles down the river, that I might not have an oppor- 
tunity of conversation with the English. I was cour- 
teously treated by the French and the priest of that 
parish. They told me he was one of the most learned 
men in the country. He was a very ingenious man, 
zealous in their way, but yet very familiar. I had 
many disputes with the priests who came thither; and 
when I used their own authors to confute some of their 
positions, my books, borrowed of them, were taken 
away from me, for they said I made an ill use of 
them ; they having many of them boasted of their 
unity in doctrine and profession, and were loath I should 
show them, from their own best approved authors, as 
many different opinions as they could charge against 
us. Here, again, a gentleman, in the presence of the 
old bishop and a priest, offered me his house and 
whole living, with assurance of honor, wealth, and em- 
ployment, if I would embrace their ways. I told them 
I had an indignation of soul against such offers, on 
such terms, as parting with what was more valuable 
than all the world ; alleging, " What is a man profited 
if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or 
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? " I 
was sometimes told I might have all my children if I 
would comply, and must never expect to have them on 
any other terms. I told them my children were dearer 
to me than all the world, but I would not deny Christ 
and his truths for the having of them with me ; I would 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



47 



still put my trust in God, who could perform all things 
for me. 

I am persuaded that the priest of that parish where I 
kept, abhorred their sending down the heathen to com- 
mit ravages against the English ; saying it was more 
like committing murders than managing a war. In my 
confinement in this parish, I had my undisturbed op- 
portunities to be humbly imploring grace for ourselves, 
for soul and body ; for his protecting presence with 
New England, and his disappointing the bloody de- 
signs of his enemies ; that God would be a little sanc- 
tuary to us in a land of captivity ; and that our friends 
in New England might have grace to make a more 
thankful and faithful improvement of the means of 
grace than we had done, who by our neglects find our- 
selves out of God's sanctuary. 

On the 21st of October, 1.704, I received some let- 
ters from New England, with an account that many of 
our neighbors escaped out of the desolations in the fort, 
and that my dear wife was decently buried, and that 
my eldest son, who was absent in our desolation, was 
sent to college and provided for; which occasioned 
thanksgiving to God in the midst of afflictions, and 
caused prayers even in Canada to be going daily up 
to heaven for a blessing on benefactors showing such 
kindness to the desolate and afflicted. 

The consideration of such crafty designs to ensnare 
young ones, and to turn them from the simplicity of 
the Gospel to Romish superstifion, was very exercising. 
Sometimes they would tell me my children, sometimes 
my neighbors, were turned to be of their religion. 
Some made it their work to allure poor souls by flat- 



48 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



teries and great promises, some threatened, some of- 
fered abusive carriage to such as refused to go to 
church and be present at mass. Some they industri- 
ously contrived to get married among them. A priest 
drew up a Compendium of the Romish Catholic Faith, 
and pretended to prove it by the Scriptures, telling the 
English that all they required was contained in the 
Scriptures, which they acknowledged to be the rule of 
faith and manners ; but it was by Scriptures horribly 
perverted and abused. I could never come to the sight 
of it (though I often earnestly entreated a copy of it) 
until I was on shipboard for our vogage to New Eng- 
land ; but hearing of it, I endeavored to possess the 
English with their danger of being cheated with such 
a pretence. I understood they would tell the English 
that I was turned, that they might gain them to change 
their religion. These their endeavors to seduce to 
Popery were very exercising to me ; and, in my soli- 
tariness, I drew up some sorrowful, mournful consider- 
ations, though unused to and unskilled in poetry, yet in 
a plain style, for the use of some of the captives, who 
would sometimes make their secret visits to me, which, 
at the desire of some of them, are here made public. 



Some Contemplations of the Poor and Desolate State 
of the Church at Beer field. 

sorrows of ray heart enlarged are, 
Whilst I my present state with past compare. 
I frequently unto God's house did go, 
With Christian friends his praises for to show ; 
But now I solitary sit, both sigh and cry, 
Whilst my flock's misery think on do I. 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



49 



Many, both old and young, were slain outright ; 
Some in a bitter season took their flight ; 
Some burnt to death, and others sjifled were : 
The enemy no age or sex would spare. 
The tender children, with their parents sad, 
Are carried forth as captives. Some unclad, 
Some murdered in the way, unburied left ; 
And some through famine were of life bereft. 
After a tedious journey, some are sold, 
Some left in heathen lands, all from Christ's fold, 
By Popish rage and heath'nish cruelty, 
Are banished. Yea, some compell'd to be 
Present at mass. Young children parted are 
From parents, and such as once instructors were. 
Crafty designs are us'd by Papists all, 
In ignorance of truth them to enthrall : 
Some threatened are, unless they will comply, 
In heathen hands again be made to lie. 
To some, large promises are made, if they 
Will truths renounce, and choose their Popish way* 

O Lord ! mine eyes on thee shall waiting be, 
Till thou again turn our captivity. 
Their Romish plots thou canst confound, and save 
This little flock ; this mercy I do crave. 
Save us from all our sins, and yet again 
Deliver us from them who truth disdain. 

Lord ! for thy mercy sake thy cov'nant mind, 
And in thy house again rest let us find. 

So we thy praises forth will show, and speak 
Of all thy wondrous works ; yea, we will seek 
Th' advancement of thy great and glorious name ; 
Thy rich and sovereign grace we will proclaim. 

The hearts of some were ready to be discouraged 
and sink, saying they were out of sight and so out of 
mind. I endeavored to persuade them we were not 
forgotten; that undoubtedly many prayers were going 
up to heaven for us. Not long after came Captain 



50 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



Livingston and Mr. Shelden, with letters from his Ex- 
cellency our Governor to the Governor of Canada 
about the exchange of prisoners, which gave a revival 
to many and raised expectation of a return. . These 
visits from New England to Canada so often greatly 
strengthened many who were ready to faint, and gave 
some check to the designs of the Papists to gain prose- 
lytes. But God's time of deliverance was not yet 
come. As to some particular persons, their tempta- 
tions and trials were increased, and some abused be- 
cause they refused compliance with their supersti- 
tions. A young woman of our town met with a new 
trial. One day a Frenchman came into the room 
where she was, and showed her his beads, and boast- 
ed of them, putting them near to her. She knocked 
them out of his hands on the floor : for which she was 
beaten and threatened with death, and for some days 
imprisoned. I pleaded with God his overruling this 
first essay for the deliverance of some, as a pledge of 
the rest being delivered in due time. I implored 
Captain De Beauville, who had always been very 
friendly, to intercede with the Governor for the return 
of my eldest daughter, and for his purchasing my son 
Stephen from the Indians at St. Francois fort, and for 
liberty to go and see my children and neighbors at 
Montreal. Divine Providence appeared to the moder- 
ating my afflictions, in that five English persons of our 
town were permitted to return with Captain Livingston, 
among whom went my eldest daughter. And my son 
Stephen was redeemed and sent to live with me. He 
was almost quite naked, and very poor. He had suf- 
fered much among the Indians. One of the Jesuits 



RETURNING TO ZION. 51 

took upon him to come to the wigwam and whip him, 
on some complaints that the squaws had made, that 
he did not work enough for them. As to my petition 
for going up to Montreal to see my children and 
neighbors, it was denied ; as my former desire of com- 
ing up to the city, before Captain Livingston's coming, 
was. God granted me favor as to two of my petitions ; 
but yet brought me by his grace to be willing that he 
should glorify himself in disposing of me and mine as he 
pleased, and knew to be most for his glory. And almost 
always before any remarkable favor I was brought to 
lie down at the foot of God, and made to be willing that 
God should govern the world so as might be most for 
his own honor, and brought to resign all to his holy 
sovereignty ; a frame of spirit, when wrought in me 
by the grace of God, giving the greatest content and 
satisfaction, and very often a forerunner of the mercy 
asked of God, or a plain demonstration that the not ob- 
taining my request was best for me. I had no small 
refreshing in having one of my children with me for 
four months. And the English were many of them 
strengthened with hopes that the treaties betwixt the 
governments would issue in opening a door of escape 
for all. 

In August, Mr. Dudley and Captain Vetch arrived, 
and great encouragements were given as to an ex- 
change of all in the spring of the year ; and some few 
again were sent home, amongst whom I obtained leave 
to send my son Stephen. 



52 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



AT QUEBECK. 

Upon Mr. Dudley's and Captain Vetch's petitioning, 
I was again permitted to go up to Quebec : but disput- 
ing with a mendicant friar, who said he was an Eng- 
lishman sent from France to endeavor the conversion 
of the English at Quebec, I was, by the priests' means, 
ordered again to return to Chateauviche ; and no other 
reason given but because I discoursed with that priest, 
and their fear that I should prevent his success among 
the captives. But God showed his dislike of such a per- 
secuting spirit; for the very next day, which was Sep- 
tember 20, O. S., October 1st, N. S., the Seminary, a 
very famous building, was most of it burnt down, oc- 
casioned by a joiner's letting a coal of fire drop 
among the shavings. The chapel in the priests' gar- 
den, and the great cross, were burnt, and the library 
of the priests burnt up. This Seminary and another 
library had been burnt but about three years before. 
The day after my being sent away by the priests from 
Quebec, at first there was a thunder-storm, and the 
lightning struck the Seminary in the very place where 
the fire now began. 

AT CHATEAUVICHE. 

A little before Mr. Dudley's arrival, came a soldier 
into my landlord's house, barefoot and barelegged, go- 
ing on a pilgrimage to Saint Anne. " For," said he, 
" my captain, who died some years ago, appeared to me 
and told me he was in purgatory, and said I must go 
a pilgrimage to Saint Anne, doing penance, and get a 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



53 



mass said for him, and then he should be delivered." 
And many believed it, and were much affected with it ; 
and came and told me of it, to gain my credit of their 
devised purgatory. The soldier told me the priests had 
counselled him to undertake this pilgrimage, and I am 
apt to think ordered his calling in at my landlord's, that 
I might see and speak with him. I laughed at the 
conceit that a soldier must be pitched upon to be sent 
on this errand ; but they were much displeased, and 
lamented my obstinacy in that I would not be re- 
claimed from a denial of purgatory by such a mirac- 
ulous providence. 

As I was able, I spread the cause before God, be- 
seeching him to disappoint them in their expectations 
to proselyte any of the captives by this stratagem : 
and, by the goodness of God, it was not very service- 
able ; for the soldier's conversation was such, that sev- 
eral among the French themselves judged it to be a 
forgery ; and though the captain spoken of was the 
Governor's lady's brother, I never more heard any con- 
cernment or care to get him out of purgatory. 

One of the parish where I lived told me, that on the 
22d of July, 1705, he was at Quebeck, at the mendi- 
cant friars' church, on one of their feast-days, in honor 
of a great saint of their order, and that at five o'clock 
mass in the morning, near two hundred persons being 
present, a great gray cat broke or pushed against some 
glass, entered into the church, and passed along near 
the altar, and put out five or six candles that were burn- 
ing ; and that no one could tell which way the cat went 
out. And he thought it was the Devil. 



54 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



AT QTJEBECK. 

When I was in the city in September, I saw two 
English maids who had lived with the Indians a long 
time. They told me that an Indian had died at the place 
where they were, and that when sundry of his relations 
were together in order to attend his funeral, the dead 
arose and informed them, that at his death he went to 
hell, and there he saw all the Indians that had been dead 
since their embracing the Popish religion, and warned 
them to leave it off or they would be damned too, 
and laid down dead again. They said the Indians 
were frightened and very melancholy. But the Jesu- 
its, to whom they told this, told them it was only a de- 
lusion of the Devil to draw them away from the true 
religion ; adding, that he knew for certain that all 
those Indians who had been dead, spoken of by that 
Indian, were in heaven, only one squaw was gone to 
hell, who died without baptism. These maids said also, 
that many of the Indians much lamented their making 
a war against the English, at the instigation of the 
French. 

AT CHATEAUVICHE. 

The priests, after Mr. Dudley's going from Canada, 
were ready to think their time was short for gaining 
English proselytes, and doubled their vigilance and 
wiles to gain over persons to their persuasion. I im- 
proved all opportunities I could to write to the English, 
that in that way I might be serviceable to them. But 
many or most of my letters treating about religion 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



55 



were intercepted and burnt. I had a letter sent down 
to me, by order of the Governor, that I had liberty of 
writing to my children and friends, which should be 
continued, provided I wrote about indifferent things, 
and said nothing in them about the points in contro- 
versy between them and us ; and if I was so hardy as 
to write letters otherwise, they should endeavor to pre- 
vent their being delivered. Accordingly, I found many 
of them were burnt. Sometimes notice would be given 
to the English that they were burnt ; so that their writ- 
ing was somewhat useful, though never perused by the 
English, because they judged those letters condemned 
Popery. Many of our letters written from New Eng- 
land were never delivered, because of some expres- 
sions about religion in them. And, as I said before, 
after Mr. Dudley's departure from Quebeck, endeavors 
were very vigorous to seduce. Some were flattered 
with large promises, others were threatened and beat- 
en because they would not turn. And when two Eng- 
lishwomen, who had always opposed their religion, 
were sick in the hospital, they kept with them night 
and day till they died, and their friends were kept from 
coming to visit them. After their death, they gave 
out that they died in the "Romish faith, and were re- 
ceived into their communion. Before their death, 
masses were said for them, and they were buried in 
the church-yard with all their ceremonies. And after 
this, letters were sent into all parts to inform the Eng- 
lish that these two women turned to their religion be- 
fore their death, and that it concerned them to follow 
their example ; for they could not be more obstinate 
than those women were in their health against the 



56 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



Romish faith, and yet on a death-bed they embraced 
it. They told the English who lived near, that our re- 
ligion was a dangerous religion to die in. But I shall 
hereafter relate the just grounds we have to think these 
things were falsehoods. 

I received a letter from one of my neighbors, where- 
in he thus bewails : " I obtained leave of my master to 
go to the Macqua fort to see my children, that I had not 
seen for a long time. I carried a letter from my mas- 
ter to show that I had leave to come. When I came 
to the fort, I heard that one of my children was in the 
woods. I went to see a boy I had there, who lived 
with one of the Jesuits. I had just asked him of his 
welfare : he said his master would come presently ; he 
durst not stay to speak with me now, being in such 
awe of his master. On which I withdrew ; and when 
his master came in, I went and asked leave of him to 
speak with my child, and showed him my letter. But 
he absolutely refused to let me see or speak with him ; 
and said I had brought no letter from the Governor, 
and would not permit me to stay in the fort, though I 
had travelled on foot near fifty miles for no other 
errand than to see and speak with my children." 

The same person, with another Englishman, last 
spring obtained leave of the Governor-General to go to 
the same fort on the same errand, and carried letters 
from the Governor to the Jesuits, that he might be per- 
mitted to speak with his children. The letter was de- 
livered to- the Jesuits ; who told him his son was not at 
home, but gone a hunting ; whereas he was hid from 
them, as he heard afterwards. So the poor man lost his 
labor a second time. These men say, that when they 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



57 



returned to Montreal, one Laland, who was appointed 
as a spy always to observe the motions of the English, 
told them that one of the Jesuits had come in before 
them, and had told the Governor that the lad was gone 
a hunting ; and that the Englishman who accompanied 
this poor man went out into the woods in hopes of 
finding the lad, and saw him, but the lad run away ; 
and that he followed him and called after him, but he 
would not stop, but, holding out a gun, threatened to 
shoot him down if he followed him, and so he was dis- 
couraged and turned back; and, says Laland, "You 
will never leave going to see your children and neigh- 
bors till some of you are killed." But the men told 
him it was an absolute lie, let who would report it; for 
they had neither seen the lad, nor did they go into the 
woods to search after him. They judge this was told 
to the Governor to prevent any English for the future 
going to see their children and neighbors. Some say 
they have been promised to have their children who 
are among the savages, in case they themselves would 
embrace Popery ; and that the priests had said they 
had rather the children should be among the Indians, 
as they were, than be brought out by the French, and 
so be in a readiness to return for New England. 

A maid of our town was put into a religious house 
among the nuns for more than two years, and all sorts 
of means, by flatteries, threatenings, and abusive car- 
riage, used to bring her to turn. They offered her 
money, which, when refused, especially the latter part 
of the time, they threatened her very much; sent for 
her before them, commanded her to cross herself. 
They ordered a rod with six branches full of knots to 
4 



58 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



be brought, and, when she refused, they struck her on 
the hands, still renewing their commands ; and she 
stood to her refusals till her hands were filled with 
wales from the blows. But one said, "Beat her no 
more ; we will give her to the Indians if she will not 
turn." They pinched her arms till they were black 
and blue, and made her go into their church ; and be- 
cause she would not cross herself, struck her several 
blows with their hands on her face. A squaw was 
brought in, and said she was sent in to fetch her 
to the Indians ; but she refused. The squaw went 
away, and said she would bring her husband with her 
to-morrow, and she should be carried away by force. 
She told me she remembered what I told her one day, 
after the nuns had threatened to give her away to the 
Indians, — that they only said so to affright her ; that 
they would never give her away. The nuns told her 
she should not be permitted any more to speak to the 
English, and that they would afflict her, without giving 
her any rest, if she refused. But God preserved her 
from falling. This poor girl had many prayers going 
up to heaven for her daily, and by name, because her 
trials were more known to the English than the trials 
of others who lived more remote from them. 

Here might be an history by itself of the trials and 
sufferings of many of our children and young ones, 
who have been abused, and, after separation from 
grown persons, made to do as they would have them. 

I shall here give an account of what was done to 
one of my children, a boy between fifteen and sixteen 
years of age, two hundred miles distant from me, 
which occasioned a grief and sorrow that I want words 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



59 



to utter ; and yet he was kept under such awe, that he 
never durst write any thing to me, for fear of being 
discovered in writing about religion. They threatened 
to put him to the Indians again, if he would not turn ; 
telling him he was never bought out of their hands, 
but only sojourned with them ; but if he would turn, he 
should never be put into their hands any more. The 
priests would spend whole days in urging him. He 
was sent to school to learn to read and write French. 
The schoolmaster sometimes flattered him with prom- 
ises if he would cross himself, then threatened him if 
he would not. But when he saw flattering promises 
of rewards, and threatenings, were ineffectual, he 
struck him with a stick he had in his hand ; and when 
he saw that would not do, he made him get down on 
his knees about an hour, and then came and bid him 
make the sign of the cross, and that without any de- 
lay. He still refused. Then he gave him a couple of 
strokes with a whip he had in his hand, — which whip 
had three branches, and about twelve great knots tied 
to it, — and again bid him make the sign of the cross ; 
and if it was any sin, he would bear it himself ; and 
said also, " You are afraid you shall be changed if you 
do it ; but," said he, " you will be the same ; your fin- 
gers wont be changed." And after he had made him 
shed many tears under his abuses and threatenings, he 
told him he would have it done : and so, through cow- 
ardice and fear of the whip, he made the sign, and did 
so for several days together, and with much ado, he 
was first brought to cross himself, and then the master 
told him he would have it done without his particular 
bidding him. And when he came to say his lesson and 



60 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



crossed not himself, the master said, " Have you forgot 
what I bid you do ? " " No, Sir," said he. Then the 
schoolmaster said, "Down on your knees"; and so 
kept him for an hour and a half, till school was done ; 
and so did for about a week. When he saw this 
would not do, he took the whip. " What ! wont you 
do it ? " said he ; " I will make you " ; and so again 
frightened him to a compliance. After this, he com- 
manded him to go to church. When he refused, he 
told him he would make him ; and one morning sent 
four of the biggest boys of the school to draw him by 
force to mass. These, with other severities and witty 
stratagems, were used, and I utterly ignorant of any 
attempt made upon him to bring him to change his re- 
ligion. Hearing of an opportunity of writing to him 
by one of the parish where I was, going up to Mont- 
real, I wrote a letter to him, and had by him a letter 
from my son, which I shall here insert. 

" Honored Father : — 
" I have received your letter bearing date January 
11th, 1705-6, for which I give you many thanks, with 
my duty, and my brother's. I am sorry you have not 
received all the letters I have wrote to you ; as I have 
not received all yours. According to your good coun- 
sel, I do almost every day read something of the Bible, 
and so strengthen my faith. As to the captives newly 
brought, Lancaster is the place of two of them, and 
Marlborough that of the third ; the Governor of Mont- 
real has them all three. There is other news that will 
seem more strange to you, — that two Englishwomen, 
who in their lifetime were dreadfully set against the 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



61 



Catholic religion, did on their deathbed embrace it; 
the one Abigail Turbet, the other of them Esther Jones, 
both of them known to you. Abigail Turbet sent for 
Mr. Meriel the Sabbath before she died, and said 
(many a' time upon several following days) that she 
committed her soul into his hands, and was ready to 
do whatever he pleased. She desired him to go to the 
chapel St. Anne, and there to say a holy mass for her, 
that she might have her sins pardoned and the will of 
the Lord accomplished upon her. Her cousin, Mrs. 
Badston, now Stilson, asked her whether she would be 
willing to do as she said. She answered, 'Yes.' 
And upon the Tuesday she was taken into the Cath- 
olic Church in the presence of John Laland and Mad- 
am Grizalem, an Englishwoman, and Mrs. Stilson 
also, with many French people besides. She was 
anointed with oil on the same day, according to her 
will then. Upon the Wednesday following, an image 
of Christ crucified was brought to her. She caused it to 
be set up over against her at the curtains of her bed, 
and looked continually upon the same. And also a little 
crucifix was brought unto her. She took it and kissed 
it, and laid it upon her stomach. She did also make 
the sign of the cross upon herself when she took any 
meat or drink. She promised to God, that, if she 
should recover, she would go to the mass every day. 
She, having on her hand a crucifix, said, ' O my Lord, 
that I should have known thee so late ! ' She did also 
make a prayer to the Virgin Mary, the two last days 
of the week.* She could utter no word ; but by kissing 
the crucifix and endeavoring to cross herself, she gave 
an evidence of her faith. She died Saturday, the 24th 



62 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



of November, at three o'elock in the afternoon. The 
next day the priests did commend the woman's soul to 
the prayers of the congregation in the mass. In the 
afternoon she was honorably buried in the church-yard 
next to the church, close to the body of the justice 
Pese's wife ; all the people being present at her funer- 
al. The same day, in the evening, Mr. Meriel, with 
an Englishwoman, went to Esther Jones. She did at 
first disdain ; but a little while after, she confessed there 
were seven sacraments, Christ's body present, the sa- 
crament of the Mass, the inequality of power among the 
pastors of the Church ; and being returned to wait by 
her all night long, he read and expounded to her some 
of the Catholic Confession of Faith to her satisfaction. 
About midnight he asked whether she might not con- 
fess her sins. 1 1 doubt not but I may,' said she ; and 
two hours after, she made unto him fervent confession 
of all the sins of her whole life. When he said he 
was to offer Christ to his Father for her, she liked it 
very well. The Superior of the nuns being come to 
see her, she now desired that she might receive Christ's 
body before she died. She did also show Mrs. Stilson 
a great mind to receive the sacrament of Extreme Unc- 
tion ; and said, that if ever she should recover and get 
home, she would reproach the ministers for their neg- 
lecting that sacrament, so plainly commanded by St. 
James. In the afternoon, after she had begged pardon 
for her wavering, the Catholic Confession of Faith 
was read aloud to her, in the hearing of Mr. Craston, 
Mrs. Stilson, and another Englishwoman, and she 
owned the same. About seven o'clock the same day, 
she said to Mr. Dubison, ' Shall not they give me the 



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63 



holy communion ? ' But her tongue was then so thick, 
that she could hardly swallow any thing. She was 
then anointed with holy oil : but before, she said to Mr. 
Meriel, 4 Why have you not yet, Sir, forgiven my 
sins ? ' In the night following, that priest and Mr. 
Dubison were continually by her, and sometimes pray- 
ing to God in her name, and praying to the Virgin 
Mary and other saints. She said also, ' I believe all ; 
I am very glad Christ was offered to his Father for me.' 
Six or seven hours before she died, a crucifix was 
showed to her by Mr. Dubison. She took it and laid it 
upon her heart, and kissed it ; and then the nuns 
hanged it, with a pair of beads, upon her neck. A 
little before she died, Mr. Dubison asked her to pray 
for him in heaven. She promised him. So she gave 
up the ghost on the 27th of November, at ten of the 
clock, whilst the high mass was saying. She was 
soon commended to the prayers. On the fourth day 
of the week following, she was buried, after the mass 
had been said for her. She was laid by Abigail 
Turbet. 

"January 23d, 1705-6." 

I have here transcribed the letter in the very words 
of it, without the least alteration. The same in sub- 
stance was sent to several other captives. When I had 
this letter, I presently knew it to be of Mr. MeriePs 
composing ; but the messenger who brought the letter 
brought word that my son had embraced their religion. 
Afterwards, when some blamed him for letting me 
know of it, because (they said) they feared my sorrow 
would shorten my days, he told me he thought with 



64 



THE REDEE3IED CAPTIVE 



himself, that, if he was in my case, he should be willing 
to know the worst, and therefore told me as he would 
have desired to have known if in my place. I thanked 
him, acknowledging it a favor to let me know of it. 
But the news was ready to overwhelm me with grief 
and sorrow. I made my complaint to God, and 
mourned before him ; sorrow and anguish took hold 
upon me. I asked of God to direct me what to do, and 
how to write, and find out an opportunity of conveying 
a letter to him; and committed this difficulty to his 
providence. I now found a greater opposition to a pa- 
tient, quiet, humble resignation to the will of God, than 
I should otherwise have known, if not so tried. Here 
I thought of my afflictions and trials, — my wife and 
two children killed, and many of my neighbors ; and 
myself, and so many of my children and friends, in a 
Popish captivity, separated from our children, not ca- 
pable to come to them to instruct them in the way they 
ought to go; and cunning, crafty enemies, using all 
their subtilty to insinuate into young ones such princi- 
ples as would be pernicious. I thought with myself 
how happy many others were in that they had their 
children with them, under all advantages to bring them 
up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ; whilst 
we were separated one from another, and our children 
in great peril of embracing damnable doctrines. O 
that all parents who read this history would bless God 
for the advantage they have of educating their chil- 
dren, and faithfully improve it ! I mourned when I 
thought with myself that I had one child with the Mac- 
quas, a second turned to Popery, and a little child, of 
six years of age, in danger to be instructed in Popery ; 



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65 



and knew full welt that all endeavors would be used to 
prevent my seeing or speaking with them. But in the 
midst of all these, God gave me a secret hope that he 
would magnify his power and free grace, and disap- 
point all their crafty designs. When I looked on the 
right hand and on the left, all refuge failed, and none 
showed any care for my soul. But God brought that 
word to uphold me, " who is able to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above what we can ask or think." As also that, 
" Is any thing too hard for God ? " I prayed to God 
to direct me. I therefore replied with the following 
letter. 

" Son Samuel : — 
" Yours of January 23d I received, and with it had 
the tidings that you had made an abjuration of the 
Protestant faith for the Romish, — news that I heard 
with the most distressing and sorrowful spirit. O, I 
pity you, I mourn over you day and night! O, I pity 
your weakness, that through the craftiness of man you 
are turned from the simplicity of the Gospel ! I per- 
suade myself you have done it through ignorance. 
O, why have you neglected to ask a father's advice in 
an affair of so great importance as the change of relig- 
ion ? God knows that the catechism in which I in- 
structed you is according to his word ; and so will be 
found in the day of judgment. O, consider and be- 
think yourself what you have done ! And whether you 
ask me or not, my poor child, I cannot but pray for 
you, that you may be recovered out of the snare you 
are taken in. Read the Bible ; pray in secret ; make 
Christ's righteousness your only plea before God for 



66 THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 

justification ; beware of all immorality, and of profan- 
ing God's Sabbaths. Let a father's advice be asked, 
for the future, in all things of weight and moment. 
4 What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul ? Or what shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul ? ' I desire to be humbled un- 
der the mighty hand of God thus afflicting me. I 
would not do as you have done for ten thousand 
worlds. My heart aches within me, but I will yet 
wait upon the Lord. To him will I commit your case 
day and night. He can perform all things for me and 
mine, and can yet again recover you from your fall. 
He is a 4 God, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and 
sin. To the Lord our God belong forgivenesses? 
though we have rebelled.' I charge you not to be in- 
strumental to ensnare your poor brother Wareham, or 
any other, and so add sin to sin. Accept of my love, 
and don't forsake a father's advice, who above all things 
desires that your soul may be saved in the day of 
the Lord." 

What I mournfully wrote, I followed with my poor 
cries to God in heaven to make effectual, to cause in 
him a consideration of what he had done. God saw 
what a proud heart I had, and what need I had to be 
so answered out of the whirlwind, that I might be hum- 
bled before him. Not having any answer to my letter 
for some weeks, I wrote the following letter, as I was 
enabled of God, and sent to him by a faithful hand ; 
which, by the blessing of God, was made effectual for 
his good, and the good of others, who had fallen to 
Popery ; and for the establishing and strengthening of 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



67 



others to resist the essays of the Adversary to truth. 
God brought good out of this evil, and made what was 
designed to promote their interest an occasion of 
shame to them. 

" Son Samuel : — 
" I have waited till now for an answer from you, 
hoping to hear from you why you made an abjuration 
of the Protestant faith for the Romish. But since you 
continue to neglect to write to me about it, as you neg- 
lected to take any advice or counsel from a father 
when you did it, I cannot forbear writing again, and 
making some reflections on the letter you wrote me 
last, about the two women. It seems to me, from 
those words of Abigail Turbet's in your letter, or rather 
of Mr. Meriel's, which you transcribed for him, — 
1 Abigail Turbet sent for Mr. Meriel, she committed 
her soul into his hand, and was ready to do whatever 
he pleased,' — I say, it seems rational to believe that 
she had not the use of her reason : it is an expression 
to be abhorred by all who have any true sense of re- 
ligion. Was Mr. Meriel a God, a Christ ? Could he 
bear to hear such words and not reject them, replying, 
4 Don't commit your soul into my hands, but see that 
you commit your soul into the hands of God through 
Christ Jesus, and do whatever God commands you in 
his holy word. As for me, I am a creature, and can- 
not save your soul, but will tell you of Acts iv. 12 : 
" Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is 
no other name under heaven given among men where- 
by we must be saved." ' Had he been a faithful min- 
ister of Jesus Christ, he would have said, ' It is an 



68 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



honor due to Christ alone.' The holy Apostle says, 
4 Now unto him that is able to keep you, and present 
you faultless before the presence of his glory, with ex- 
ceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be 
glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and 
ever. Amen.' (Jude, ver. 24, 25.) As to what you 
write about praying to the Virgin Mary and other 
saints, I make this reply : Had Mr. Meriel done his 
duty, he would have said to them, as 1 John ii. 1,2, 4 If 
any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous ; and he is the propitiation 
of our sins.' The Scriptures say, 4 There is one God, 
and one mediator between God and man, the man 
Christ Jesus.' Yea, Christ said, 4 Go and preach, He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' The 
Apostle, in Gal. i. 8, saith, ' But though we or an angel 
from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than 
that we have preached to you, let him be accursed.' 
They never preached that we should pray to the Virgin 
Mary, or other saints. As you would be saved, hear 
what the Apostle saith, Heb. iv. 13, &c. : 4 Neither is 
there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; 
but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him 
with whom we have to do. Seeing, then, that we have 
a great high-priest, that is entered into heaven, Jesus 
the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we 
have not an high-priest that cannot be touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us there- 
fore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we 
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of 
need.' Which words do hold forth, how that Jesus 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



69 



Christ is in every respect qualified to be a mediator 
and intercessor; and I am sure they cannot be applied 
to any mere creature, to make them capable of our 
religious trust. When Roman Catholics have said all 
they can, they are not able to prove that the saints in 
heaven have a knowledge of prayers which are direct- 
ed to them. Some say they know them one way ; 
others say they have the knowledge of them in an- 
other way, — that they know of them from their behold- 
ing the face of God ; seeing God, they know these 
prayers. But this is a great mistake. Though the 
saints see and know God in a glorious manner, yet 
they have not an infinite knowledge ; and it does no 
ways follow, that, because they see God, they know all 
prayers that are directed to them upon the earth. And 
God has nowhere in his word told us that the saints 
have such a knowledge. Besides, were it a thing 
possible for them to have a knowledge of what prayers 
are directed to them, it does not follow that they are to 
be prayed to, or have religious honor conferred upon 
them. The Romanists can neither give one Scripture 
precept or example for praying to them : but God has 
provided a mediator, who knows all our petitions, and 
is faithful and merciful enough ; and we have both 
Scripture precept and example to look to him as our 
mediator and advocate with the Father. Further, it 
cannot be proved that it is consistent with the saints 
being creatures, as well as with their happiness, to 
have a knowledge of prayers from all parts of the 
world at the same time, from many millions together, 
about things so vastly differing one from another; and 
then to present those supplications for all that look to 



70 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



them is not humility, but will-worship. Col. ii. 18, 
4 Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a volun- 
tary humility, worshipping of angels ' ; ver. 23, 4 which 
things indeed have a show of wisdom and will- worship 
and humility.' For what humility can it be to distrust 
the way that God has provided and encouraged us to 
come to him in, and impose upon God a way of our 
own devising? Was not God angry with Jeroboam 
for imposing upon him after such a sort? 1 Kings 
xii. 33, 4 So he offered upon the altar which he had 
made in Bethel, the fifth day of the eighth month, 
which he devised of his own heart.' Therefore Christ 
saith, Mark vii. 7, 4 Howbeit, in vain do they worship 
me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.' 
Before the coming of Christ and his entering into 
heaven as an intercessor, — Heb. vii. 25, 4 Wherefore 
he is able to save them to the uttermost that come to 
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession 
for them,' — I say, before Christ's entering into heaven 
as an intercessor, not one word of any prayer to 
saints. What reason can be given that now there is 
need of so many saints to make intercession, when 
Christ as a priest is entered into heaven to make inter- 
cession for us ? The answer that the Romanists give 
is a very fable and falsehood ; viz. that there were no 
saints in heaven till after the resurrection and ascen- 
sion of Christ, but were reserved in a place called 
Limbus Patrum, and so had not the beatifical vision. 
See Gen. v. 24 : 4 Enoch walked with God and was 
not, for God took him.' If he was not taken into 
heaven, what can be the sense of those words, 4 for 
God took him' ? Again, 2 Kings ii. 1, 4 When the 



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71 



Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind,' 
ver. 11, 'there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses 
of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went 
up by a whirlwind into heaven.' Must the truth of the 
Scripture be called in question to uphold their notions? 
Besides, it is not consistent with reason to suppose that 
Enoch and Elias, instead of having a peculiar privilege 
vouchsafed to them for their eminence in holiness, 
should be less happy for so long a time than the rest 
of the saints deceased, who are glorified in heaven ; 
which must be, if they are yet kept, and must be till 
the day of judgment, out of heaven and the beatifical 
vision, in an earthly paradise, according to some of the 
Romanists ; or in some other place, they know not 
where, according to others. Religious worship is not 
to be given to the creature. Mat. iv. 9, 10, 4 And saith, 
All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down 
and worship me. Then saith Jesus to him, Get thee 
hence, Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the 
Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' That 
phrase, 4 and him only shalt thou serve,' excludes all 
creatures. Rev. xxii. 8, 9, 4 1 fell down to worship be- 
fore the feet of the angel which showed me these 
things ; then saith he to me, See thou do it not, for I 
am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the proph- 
ets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book : 
worship God.' Which plainly shows that God only is 
to be worshipped with a religious worship. None can 
think that St. John intended to give the highest divine 
worship to the angel, who saith, Do not fall down and 
worship me ; it is God's due, worship God. So Acts 
x. 25, 26, 4 As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met 



72 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



him, and fell down at his feet and worshipped him ; 
but Peter took him up, saying, Stand up ; I myself also 
am a man.' See also Lev. * ix. 10. The words of the 
second commandment, — which the Romanists either 
leave out, or add to the first commandment, saying, 
4 Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' adding, 
&,c, — I say, the words of the second commandment 
are, ' Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven 
image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven 
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
waters under the earth ; thou shalt not bow down thy- 
self to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God 
am a jealous God,' &c. These words being inserted 
in the letter that came from your brother Eleazer in 
New England, the last summer, was the cause of the 
letter's being sent down from Montreal, and not given 
to you when so near you, as I suppose, there being no 
other clause of the letter that could be objected against ; 
and the reason why found at Quebeck, when I sent it to 
you a second time, inclosed in a letter written by my- 
self. The brazen serpent made by divine appointment 
as a type of Christ, when abused to superstition, was by 
reforming Hezekiah broken in pieces. As to what the 
Romanists plead about the lawfulness of image and 
saint worship from those likenesses of things made in 
Solomon's temple, it is nothing to the purpose. We 
do not say it is unlawful to make or have a picture, but 
those carved images were not in the temple to be 
adored, bowed down to, or worshipped. There is no 
manner of consequence, that because there were im- 
ages made in Solomon's temple that were not made 
and worshipped, that therefore it is now lawful to 



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73 



make and fall down before images, and pray to them, 
and so worship them. ' Religious worshipping of saints 
cannot be defended from, but is forbidden in, the Scrip- 
tures; and for fear of losing their disciples, the Ro- 
manists keep away from them the Bible, and oblige 
them to believe as they say they must believe. As 
though there was no use to be made of our reason 
above our souls ; and yet the Bereans were counted 
noble, for searching the Scriptures to see whether the 
things preached by St. Paul were so or not. They 
dare not allow you liberty to speak with your father or 
others, for fear their errors should be discovered to 
you. 

" Again, you write that Esther Jones confessed that 
there 1 was an inequality of power among the pastors 
of the Church.'' An argument to convince the world, 
that because the priests, in fallacious ways, caused a* 
woman distempered with a very high fever, if not dis- 
tracted, to say she confessed there was an inequality of 
power among the pastors of the Church, therefore all 
the world are obliged to believe that there is a Pope : 
an argument to be sent from Dan to Beersheba, every- 
where, where any English captives are, to gain their 
belief of a Pope. Can any rational man think that 
Christ, in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, gave St. 
Peter such a power as the Papists speak of, or that the 
disciples so understood Christ, when immediately there 
arose a dispute among them who should be the greatest 
in the kingdom of heaven? Matt, xviii. 1, 'At the 
same time came the disciples of Jesus, saying, Who is 
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? ' The Rock 
spoken of in the sixteenth of Matthew, not the person 
5 



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THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



of Peter, but the confession made by him ; and the 
same power is given to all the disciples, if you com- 
pare one Scripture with another; not one word in any 
place of Scripture of such a vicarship power as of a 
Pope, nor any solid foundation of proof that Peter had 
a greater authority than the rest of the Apostles. 1 Cor. 
iv. 6, 4 That you might learn in us not to think of men 
above that which is written.' Yea, the Apostle con- 
demns them, 1 Cor. i. 12, for their contentions, one 
saying, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas ; 
no more of Peter's being a foundation than any of the 
rest. 'For we are built upon the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
chief corner-stone.' Not one word in any of Peter's 
Epistles showing that he had greater power than the 
other Apostles. Nay, if the Scriptures give any prefer- 
ence, it is to St. Paul rather than St. Peter. 1 Cor. iii. 
10, 4 According to the grace of God which is given to 
me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the founda- 
tion.' 1 Cor. v. 3, 4, 4 For I verily, as absent in body, 
but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I 
were present, concerning him that hath so done this 
deed ; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye 
are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of 
our Lord Jesus Christ,' &c. 1 Cor. vii. 1, ' Now con- 
cerning the things whereof ye wrote to me'; applica- 
tion made, not to St. Peter, but Paul, for the decision 
of a controversy or scruple. 1 Cor. xi. 2, 4 Now I 
praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all 
things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to 
you.' Either those spoken, Acts xv., or in his minis- 
try and Epistles. 2 Cor. ii. 10, 4 For your sake forgive 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



75 



I it, in the person of Christ.' 2 Cor. xi. 28, ' That 
which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the 
churches.' 2 Cor. xii. 11, 12, 4 For in nothing am I 
behind the very chiefest of the Apostles, though I be 
nothing. Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought 
among you, in all patience, in signs and wonders and 
mighty deeds'; and in other places. Again, if you 
consult Acts xv., where you have an account of the 
first synod or council, you will find that the counsel or 
sentence of the Apostle James is followed, ver. 19, 
4 Wherefore my sentence is,' &c. ; not a word that St. 
Peter was chief. Again, you find Peter himself sent 
forth by the other Apostles. Acts viii, 14, 1 The 
Apostles sent unto them Peter and John.' When the 
church of the Jews found fault with Peter for going 
in to the Gentiles when he went to Cornelius, he does 
not say, Why do you question me, or call me to ac- 
count ? I am Christ's vicar on earth. When Paul re- 
proved Peter, Gal. ii., he does not defend himself by 
mentioning an infallibility in himself as Christ's vicar, 
or reprove Paul for his boldness. 

" The Roman Catholic Church cannot be a true 
Church of Christ, in that it makes laws directly contra- 
ry to the laws and commands of Christ. As, for ex- 
ample, in withholding the wine or the cup from the 
laity in the Lord's Supper; when as Christ commands 
the same to drink who were to eat. /Their evasion, 
that the blood is in the body, and so they partake of 
both in eating, is a great fallacy, built on a false foun- 
dation of transubstantiation. For when men eat, they 
cannot be said to drink, which Christ commands ; for 
Christ commands that we take the cup and drink, 



76 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



which is not done in eating ; besides, the priests them- 
selves will not be so put off. The words, ' This is my 
body,' doth only intend, this doth signify or repre- 
sent my body ; which will appear if you compare 
scripture with scripture ; for after the consecration the 
Holy Ghost calls it bread, and the fruit of the vine. 
Exod. xii. 11, * It is the Lord's Passover ' ; that is, it rep- 
resents it. In all the Evangelists you read of killing and 
eating the passover, a few lines or verses before these 
words, 4 This is my body ' ; which plainly show, that our 
Saviour in the same way of figurative expression speaks 
of the Gospel sacrament. If these words were taken 
as the Romanists expound them, he must eat his own 
body himself, whole and entire in his own hands; and 
after that each of the disciples eat him entire, and yet 
he sit at the table whole, untouched at the same time ; 
contradictions impossible to be defended by any ra- 
tional arguments. Yea, his whole body must be now 
in heaven, and in a thousand other places, and in the 
mouth of every communicant at the same time, and 
that both as a broken and unbroken sacrifice, and be 
subject to putrefaction. Christ is said to be a door, a true 
vine, a way, a rock. What work shall we make, if we 
expound these in a literal manner, as the Romanists 
do, when they say, 'This is my body,' is meant the 
real body of Christ in the Eucharist ? It is said, 1 Cor. 
x. 4, 4 And did all drink of the same spiritual drink, for 
they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, 
and that rock was Christ.' Was Christ literally a 
rock, think you ? Yea, it is absurd to believe that a 
priest, uttering a few words over a wafer not above an 
inch square, can make it a God, or the body of Christ 



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77 



entire, as it was offered on the cross. A blasphemy 
to pretend to a power of making God at their pleasure, 
and then eat him, and give him to others to be eaten, 
or shut him up in their altars ; that they can utter the 
same words, and make a God or not make a God, ac- 
cording to their intention ; and that the people are 
obliged to believe that it is God, and so adore it, when 
they never hear any word of consecration, nor know 
the priest's intention. 

" As to what you write about the Holy Mass, I reply, 
It is wholly an human invention ; not a word of such a 
sacrifice in the whole Bible ; its being a sacrifice pro- 
pitiatory daily to be offered, is contrary to the Holy 
Scriptures. Heb. vii. 27, ' Who needeth not daily, as 
those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own 
sins, and then for the people's ; for this he did once 
when he offered up himself.' And yet the Romanists 
say there is need that he be offered up as a sacrifice to 
God every day. Heb. ix. 12, 4 By his own blood he 
entered in once into the holy place, having obtained 
eternal redemption for us.' 25-28, 1 Nor yet that he 
should offer himself often, as the high-priest entereth 
into the holy place every year with *the blood of 
others ; for then must he often have suffered since the 
foundation of the world : but now once in the end of 
the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sac- 
rifice of himself. As it is appointed unto men once to 
die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once 
offered to bear the sins of many.' Heb. x. 10, 4 By 
which will we are sanctified, through the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all.' Ver. 12, 4 But 
this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, 



78 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



for ever sat down on the right hand of God. 1 Ver. 14, 
4 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them 
that are sanctified.' By which Scripture you may see 
that the mass is not of divine appointment, but an hu- 
man invention. Their evasion of a bloody and an un- 
bloody sacrifice is a sham. The Holy Scriptures speak 
not one word of Christ's being offered as a sacrifice 
propitiatory, after such a sort as they call an unbloody 
sacrifice. All the ceremonies of the mass are human 
inventions, that God never commanded. 

" As to what is in the letter about praying for the 
women after their death, is very ridiculous : for as 
the tree falls, so it lies ; as death leaves, judgment 
will find. No change after death from an afflicted to 
an happy place and state. Purgatory is a fancy for 
enriching the clergy and impoverishing the laity. The 
notion of it is a fatal snare to many souls, who sin with 
hopes of easily getting priestly absolution at death, and 
buying off their torments with their money. The soul 
at death goes immediately to judgment, and so to 
heaven or hell. Mr. Meriel told me, if I found one 
error in our religion, it was enough to cause me to dis- 
own our whole religion. By his argument you may 
see what reason you have to avoid the religion that is 
so full of errors. 

" Bethink yourself, and consult the Scriptures, if you 
can get them (I mean the Bible). Can you think 
their religion is right, when they are afraid to let you 
have an English Bible ; or to speak with your father, 
or other of your Christian neighbors, for fear they 
would give you such convictions of truth that they can- 
not remove? Can that religion be true that cannot 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



79 



bear an examination from the Scriptures, that are a 
perfect rule in matters of faith ; or that must be upheld 
by ignorance, especially ignorance of the Holy Scrip- 
tures ? 

" These things have I written as in my heart I be- 
lieve. I long for your recovery, and will not cease to 
pray for it. I am now a man of a sorrowful spirit, and 
look upon your fall as the most aggravating circum- 
stance of my afflictions ; and am persuaded that no 
pains will be wanting to prevent me from seeing or 
speaking with you ; but I know that God's grace is all- 
sufficient : 4 He is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above what I can ask or think.' Do not give way to 
discouragement as to your return to New England. 
Read over what I have written, and keep it with you, if 
you can ; you have no friend on earth that wisheth 
your eternal salvation more heartily than your father. 
I long to see and speak with you, but I never forget 
you. My love to you, and to your brother and sister, 
and to all our fellow-prisoners. Let me hear from you 
as often as you can. I hope God will appear for us 
before it be long. 

" There are a great many other things in the letter 
that deserve to be refuted, but I should be too tedious 
in remarking them all at once. Yet would not pass 
over the passage in the letter, that Esther Jones con- 
fessed that there were seven sacraments. To which I 
answer, that some of the most learned of the Romish 
religion confessed, without the distracting pains of a 
violent fever, and left it on record in print, that it can- 
not be convincingly made out from the Scripture that 
there are seven sacraments ; and that their most incon- 



so 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



testable proof is from tradition, and by their traditions 
they might have found seventeen as well as seven ; 
considering that four Popes, successively, spent their 
lives in purging and correcting old authors. But no 
men can out of the Holy Scriptures prove any more 
than two sacraments of divine institution under the 
New Testament ; namely, Baptism and the Lord's 
Supper. If you make the Scriptures a perfect rule of 
faith, as you ought to do, you cannot believe as the 
Romish Church believes. O, see that you sanctify the 
Lord himself in your heart, and make him your fear 
and your dread. 4 Fear not them that can kill the 
body, and after that have no more that they can do ; 
but rather fear him that has power to destroy soul and 
body in hell-fire.' The Lord have mercy upon you, 
and show you mercy for the worthiness and righteous- 
ness' sake of Jesus Christ, our great and glorious re- 
deemer and advocate, who makes intercession for 
transgressors. My prayers are daily to God for you 
and your brother and sister, yea, and for all my chil- 
dren and fellow-prisoners. 

" I am your afflicted and sorrowful father, 

u John Williams. 

" Cftateauviche, March 22, 1706." 

God, who is gloriously free and rich in his grace to 
vile sinners, was pleased to bless poor and weak 
means for the recovery of my child so taken, and gave 
me to see that he did not say to the house of Jacob, 
" Seek you me in vain." O that every reader would 
in every difficulty make Him their refuge ! He is 
an hopeful stay. To alleviate my sorrow, I received 
the following letter in answer to mine. 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



81 



" Montreal, May 12, 1706. 

" Honored Father : — 

" I received your letter which was sent by , 

which good letter I thank you for ; and for the good 
counsel which you gave me : I desire to be thankful for 
it, and hope it will be for the benefit of my soul. I 
may say, as in the Psalms, 1 The sorrows of death com- 
passed me, and the pains of hell gat hold on me : I 
found trouble and sorrow ; then called I upon the name 
of the Lord : O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul ! 
Gracious is the Lord and righteous, yea, our God is 
merciful.' As for what you ask me about my making 
an abjuration of the Protestant faith for the Romish, I 
durst not write so plain to you as I would, but hope to 
see and discourse with you. I am sorry for the sin I 
have committed in changing of religion, for which I 
am greatly to blame. You may know that Mr. Meriel, 
the schoolmaster, and others, were continually at me 
about it ; at last T gave over to it, for which I am very 
sorry. As for that letter you had frOm me, it was a 
letter I transcribed for Mr. Meriel : and for what he 
saith about Abigail Turbet and Esther Jones, nobody 
heard them but he, as I understand. I desire your 
prayers to God for me, to deliver me from my sins. 
O, remember me in your prayers ! I am your dutiful 
son, ready to take your counsel. 

" Samuel Williams." 

This priest, Mr. Meriel, has brought many letters to 
him, and bid him write them over and send them, and 
so he has done for many others. By this, as also by 



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THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



Mrs. Stilson's saying " she does not think that either 
of these women did change their religion before their 
death," and also, " that oftentimes during their sickness, 
whilst they had the use of their reason, they protested 
against the Romish religion and faith," it is evident that 
these women never died Papists, but that it was a wily 
stratagem of the priests to advance their religion, for 
letters were sent, immediately after their death, to use 
this as a persuasive argument to gain others ; but God 
in his providence gave farther convictions of their falla- 
ciousness in this matter. 

For the last summer, one Biggilow from Marlbor- 

' DO 

ough, a captive at Montreal, was very sick in the hos- 
pital, and in the judgment of all with a sickness to 
death. Then the priests and others gave out that he 
was turned to be of their religion, and taken into their 
communion. But, contrary to their expectation, he 
was brought back from the gates of death, and would 
comply with none of their rites ; saying, that, whilst he 
had the use of his reason, he never spake any thing in 
favor of their religion ; and that he never disowned the 
Protestant faith, nor would he now. So that they 
were silenced and put to shame. There is no reason 
to think that these two women were any more Papists 
than he : but they are dead, and cannot speak. One 
of the witnesses spoken of in the before-mentioned let- 
ters, told me she knew of no such thing, and said. Mr. 
Meriel told her that he never heard a more fervent and 
affectionate prayer than one which Esther Jones made 
a little before her death. I am verily persuaded, 
that he calls that prayer to God, so full of affection and 
fervor, the " confession made by her of the sins of her 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



83 



whole life." These two women always in their health, 
and so in their sickness, opposed all Popish principles, 
as all that knew them can testify, so long as they could 
be permitted to go and speak to them. One of these 
women was taken from the Eastward, and the other, 
namely, Esther Jones, from Northampton. 

AT QUEBECK. 

In the beginning of March, 1706, Mr. Shelden came 
again to Canada, with letters from his Excellency our 
Governor, at which time I was a few days at Quebeck. 
And when I was there, one night about ten o'clock, 
there was an earthquake, that made a report like a 
cannon, and made the houses to tremble. It was 
heard and felt many leagues, all along the island of St. 
Lawrence, and other places. When Mr. Shelden came 
the second time, the adversaries did what they could to 
retard the time of our return, to gain time to seduce 
our young ones to Popery. Such were sent away who 
were ungainable, and most of the younger sort still 
kept. Some still flattered with promises of reward, 
and essays were made to get others married among 
them. One was debauched, and then in twenty-four 
hours of time published, taken into their communion, 
and married ; but the poor soul has had time since to 
lament her sin and folly, with a bitter cry ; and asks 
your prayers, that God of his sovereign grace would 
yet bring her out of the horrible pit she has thrown her- 
self into. Her name was Rachel Storer, of Wells. 

In April, one Zebediah Williams, of Deerfield, died. 
He was a very hopeful and pious young man, who 



54 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



carried himself so in his captivity as to edify several 
of the English, and recover one fallen to Popery, 
taken the last war; though some were enraged against 
him on these accounts, yet even the French where he 
sojourned, and with whom he conversed, would say 
he was a good man, — one that was very prayerful to 
God, and studious and painful in reading the Holy 
Scriptures ; a man of a good understanding, a desir- 
able conversation. In the beginning of his last sick- 
ness he made me a visit (before he went to the hos- 
pital at Quebeck), as he had several times before, to my 
great satisfaction, and our mutual consolation and com- 
fort in our captivity. He lived not above two miles 
from me, at the island of St. Lawrence, about six 
weeks or two months. After his death the French 
told me Zebediah was gone to hell, and damned ; for, 
said they, he has appeared since his death to one 
Joseph Egerly, an Englishman who was taken in the 
last war, in flaming fire, telling him, " He was damned 
for refusing to embrace the Romish religion, when 
such pains were used to bring him to the true faith ; 
and for being instrumental to draw him away from the 
Romish communion, forsaking the mass ; and was 
therefore now come to advertise him of his danger"! 
I told them I judged it to be a Popish lie ; saying, I bless 
God our religion needs no lies to uphold, maintain, and 
establish it, as theirs did. But they affirmed it to be 
true, telling me how God approved of their religion, 
and witnessed miraculously against ours. But I still 
told them, I was persuaded his soul was in heaven, and 
that their reports were only devised fables to seduce 
souls. For several weeks they affirmed it, telling me, 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



85 



that all who came over the river from the island 
affirmed it to be a truth. I begged of God to blast 
this hellish design of theirs ; so that in the issue it 
might be to render their religion more abominable, and 
that they might not gain one soul by such a stratagem. 
After some weeks had passed in such assertions, there 
came one into my landlord's house, affirming it to be a 
truth reported of Zebediah ; saying, Joseph Egerly 
had been over the river and told one of our neighbors 
this story. After a few hours I saw that neighbor, and 
asked him whether he had seen Egerly lately. He said, 
" Yes." " What news told he you ? " 44 None," 
said he. Then I told him what was affirmed as a 
truth ; he answered, Egerly said nothing like this to 
him, and he was persuaded that he would have told 
him, if there had been any truth in it. About a week 
after, came one John Boult from the island of St. 
Lawrence, a lad taken from Newfoundland, a very 
serious, sober lad, of about seventeen years of age. 
He had often before come over with Zebediah to visit 
me. At his coming in he much lamented the loss of 
Zebediah ; and told me, that for several weeks they 
had told him the same story, affirming it to be a truth, 
and that Egerly was so awakened by it, as to go again 
to mass every day ; urging him, since God in such a 
miraculous way offered such conviction of the truth of 
their religion, and the falsehood and danger of ours, to 
come over to their religion, or else his damnation 
would be dreadfully aggravated. He said, he could 
have no rest for them day and night ; but, said he, " I 
told them their religion was contrary to the word of 
God, and therefore I would not embrace it ; and that 



86 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



I did not believe what they said." And says he to me, 
" One day I was sitting in the house, and Egerly came 
in, and I spake to him before the whole family (in the 
French tongue, for he could not speak much English), 
and asked him of this story. He answered, ' It is a 
great falsehood,' saying, i He never appeared to me, 
nor have I ever reported any such thing to any body ' ; 
and that he had never been at the mass since Zebe- 
diah's death. At the hearing of which, they were si- 
lenced and put to shame." We blessed God together, 
for discovering their wickedness, and disappointing 
them in what they aimed at ; and prayed to God to 
deliver us and all the captives from delusions, and re- 
cover them who had fallen, and so parted. After 
which I took my pen and wrote a letter to one Samuel 
Hill, an English captive, taken from Wells, who lived 
at Quebeck, and his brother Ebenezer Hill, to make a 
discovery of this lying plot, to warn them of their dan- 
ger, and assure them of the falsehood of this report ; 
but the letter fell into the hands of the priests, and was 
never delivered. This Egerly came home with us, so 
that they gained nothing but shame by their stratagem. 
God often disappoints the crafty devices of wicked 
men. 

In the latter end of summer, they told me they had 
news from New England, by one who had been a cap- 
tive at Boston, who said that the ministers at Boston 
had told the French captives, that the Protestant re- 
ligion was the only true religion ; and that as a con- 
firmation of it, they would raise a dead person to life 
before their eyes, for their conviction ; and that having 
persuaded one to feign himself dead, they came and 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



87 



prayed over him, and then commanded him, in the 
name of Christ (whose religion they kept pure), to 
arise ; they called and commanded, but he never 
arose ; so that instead of raising the dead, they killed 
the living, which the bereaved relations discovered. I 
told them, it was an old lie and calumny against 
Luther and Calvin, new vamped, and that they only 
change the persons and place ; but they affirmed it 
to be a truth. I told them I wondered they were so 
fond of a faith propagated and then maintained by 
lying words. 

We were almost out of hopes of being returned be- 
fore winter, the season proving so cold the latter end 
of September, and were praying to God to prepare 
our hearts with an holy submission to his holy will, to 
glorify his holy name in a way of passive obedience, in 
the winter. For my own part, I was informed by several 
who came from the city, that the Lord Intendant said, 
if More returned, and brought word that Battis was in 
prison, he would put me in prison, and lay me in irons. 
They would not permit me to go into the city, saying 
I always did harm when I came to the city, and if at 
any time I was at the city, they would persuade the 
Governor to send me back again. 

In the beginning of last June, the Superior of the 
priests came to the parish where I was, and told me 
he saw I wanted my friend, Captain De Beauville, and 
that I was ragged ; but, says he, " Your obstinacy 
against our religion discourages us from providing bet- 
ter clothes." I told him, " It was better going in a 
ragged coat, than with a ragged conscience." 

In the beginning of last June, went out an army 



88 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



of five hundred Madquas and Indians, with an intention 
to have fallen on some English towns down Connecti- 
cut River, but lighting on a Scatacook Indian, who 
afterwards ran away in the night, they were discour- 
aged, saying he would alarm the whole country. 
About fifty or eighty returned. Thus God restrained 
their wrath. 

When they were promising themselves another 
winter, to draw away the English to Popery, news came 
that an English brigantine was coming, and that the 
honorable Capt. Samuel Appleton, Esq. was coming 
ambassador, to fetch off the captives, and Capt. John 
Bonner with him. I cannot tell you how the clergy 
and others labored to stop many of the prisoners. To 
some liberty, to some money, and yearly pensions 
were offered, if they would stay. Some they urged to 
tarry at least till the spring of the year ; telling them, 
it was so late in the year, they would be lost by ship- 
wreck if they went now ; some younger ones they told, 
if they went home they would be damned and burnt in 
hell for ever, to affright them ; day and night they 
were urging them to stay. And I was threatened to be 
sent aboard, without a permission to come ashore, if I 
should again discourse with any of the English who 
were turned to their religion. At Montreal, especially, 
all crafty endeavors were used to stay the English. 
They told my child, if he would stay, he should have 
an honorable pension from the king every year, and 
that his master, who w r as an old man, and the richest 
in Canada, would give him a great deal ; telling him, if 
he returned, he would be poor, for, said they, " your 
father is poor, has lost all his estate, it was all burnt " ; 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



89 



but he could not be prevailed to stay. And others 
were also in like manner urged to stay ; but God gra- 
ciously brake the snare, and brought them out. They 
endeavored, in the Fall of the year, to prevail with my 
son to go to France, when they saw he would not 
come to their communion any more. One woman be- 
longing to the Eastern parts, who had by their persua- 
sions married an English captive taken the last war, 
came away with her husband ; which made them say, 
they were sorry they ever persuaded her to turn to 
their religion, and then to marry ; for instead of ad- 
vancing their cause by it, they had weakened it ; for 
now they had not only lost her, but another they 
thought they had made sure of. Another woman be- 
longing to the Eastward, who had been flattered to their 
religion, to whom a Bible was denied till she promised 
to embrace their religion, and then had the promise of 
it for a little time ; opening her Bible whilst in the 
church and present at mass, she read the fourth 
chapter of Deuteronomy, and received such conviction 
whilst reading, that before her first communion she fell 
off from them, and could never be prevailed with any 
more to be of their religion. 

We have reason to bless God, who has wrought de- 
liverance for so many ; and yet pray to God for a 
door of escape, to be opened for the great number yet 
behind, not much short of an hundred ; many of which 
are children, and of these not a few among the sav- 
ages, and having forgot the English tongue, will be 
lost, and turn savages also in a little time, unless some- 
thing extraordinary prevent. 

The vessel that came for us, in its voyage to Cana- 
6 



90 



THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE 



da, struck on a bar of sands, and there lay in very 
great hazard for four tides ; and yet they saw reason 
to bless God for striking there ; for had they got over 
that bar, they would at midnight, in a storm of snow, 
have run upon a terrible ledge of rocks. 

We came away from Quebeck, October 25 ; and by 
contrary winds, and a great storm, we were retarded, 
and then driven back nigh the city, and had a great 
deliverance from shipwreck, the vessel striking twice 
on a rock in that storm. But through God's goodness, 
we all arrived in safety at Boston, November 21 ; the 
number of captives, fifty-seven, two of which were my 
children. I have yet a daughter of ten years of age, 
and many neighbors*, whose case bespeaks your com- 
passion and prayers to God, to gather them, being out- 
casts ready to perish. 

At our arrival at Boston, we found the kindness of 
the Lord in a wonderful manner, in opening the hearts 
of many to bless God with us and for us ; wonderfully 
to give for our supplies in our needy state. We are 
under obligation to praise God, for disposing the hearts 
of so many to so great charity ; and under great bonds 
to pray for a blessing on the heads, hearts, and fami- 
lies of them, who so lihsrally and plentifully gave for 
our relief. It is certain, that the charity of the whole 
country of Canada, though moved with the doctrine of 
merit, does not come up to the charity of Boston alone, 
where notions of merits are rejected ; but acts of char- 
ity performed out of a right Christian spirit, from a 
spirit of thankfulness to God, out of obedience to God's 
command, and unfeigned love and charity to them that 
are of the same family and household of faith. The 



RETURNING TO ZION. 



91 



Lord grant that all who devise such liberal things may 
find the accomplishment of the promises made by God, 
in their own persons, and theirs after them, from 
generation to generation. 

I shall annex a short account of the troubles begin- 
ning to arise in Canada. On May 16 arrived a canoe 
at Quebeck, that brought letters from Mississippi, writ- 
ten the May preceding ; giving an account that the 
plague was there, and that one hundred and fifty 
French in a very little time had died of it ; and that 
the savages called the Lezilouways were very turbu- 
lent, and had with their arrows wounded a Jesuit in five 
places, and killed a Frenchman that waited on him. 
In July news came that the nations up the river 
were engaged in a war one against the other; and 
that the French living so among them, and / trading 
with them, were in great danger ; that the Michel 
Macquinas* had made a war with the Mizianmies, and 
had killed a mendicant friar, and three other French- 
men, and eleven savages, at a place called the Straits, 
where they are settling a garrison and place for traffic ; 
the Michel Macquinas have taken sixteen Frenchmen 
prisoners, and burnt their trading-houses. These ti- 
dings made the French very full of perplexing troubles ; 
but the Jesuits are endeavoring to pacify them. But 
the troubles when we came away were rather increas- 
ing than lessening ; for the last letters from the French 
prisoners at Michel Macquina report that the savages 



* Michilimackinaws. 



92 THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE RETURNING TO ZION. 

had sent out two companies, one of an hundred and 
fifty, the other of an hundred and sixty, against the 
savages at the Straits ; and they feared they would en- 
gage as well against the French as the Indians. 



BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 

OF 

THE REV. JOHN WILLIAMS, 

AUTHOR OF ;< THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE." 



MEMOIR. 



The lives of eminent men are identified with the 
history of the section of the country in which they have 
resided. This is peculiarly the case with the subject 
of this memoir. Having spent the greater part of his 
days in the town of Deerfield, on the banks of Con- 
necticut River, at a period when the country was wild 
and waste, and exposed to all the horrors of savage 
warfare, and having sustained so great a share of the 
privations and sufferings of our fathers in planting and 
establishing the pleasant country in which we now re- 
side, under the banners of peace, of comfort, and se- 
curity, his biography must be interesting to his friends 
and the public. 

Mr. John Williams was born at Roxbury, Massachu- 
setts, December 16, 1664. He was son of Deacon 
Samuel Williams, of the same place, and grandson of 
Mr. Robert Williams, who, according to the best infor- 
mation I can obtain, came from Norwich, England, 
and settled at Roxbury in the year 1638, eighteen 
years from the time of the landing of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth, and eight years from the settlement of Tri- 



96 



MEMOIR OF 



mountain, Shawmut, or Boston. It appears that at the 
time of the first settlement of Boston there was but one 
English inhabitant in Roxbury. Eight years after 
this, Mr. Williams arrived and settled there. We have 
no correct account of the cause of his leaving his na- 
tive land, but it was probably on account of the relig- 
ious persecutions of the Puritans, which at that time 
were carried on with fiery and unrelenting zeal ; — so 
much so, that our ancestors preferred risking, their 
lives and property in a savage wilderness, far distant 
from their native home, to the more savage persecu- 
tions of fanatical bigots. The faithful page of history 
has informed us of the sufferings of our fathers in 
establishing themselves in this howling wilderness, and 
how much they had to contend with from the warfare 
of the savages, from famine and disease. It is probable 
that Mr. Williams endured his portion of these trials 
and hardships. Soon after his arrival at Roxbury, he 
married, and had four children, and from him have de- 
scended all the families of Williamses in this section 
of the country. 

John, the subject of this notice, early devoted his 
attention to study. Through the munificence of his 
honored and pious grandfather, on the maternal side, 
Deacon William Park, he was educated at Harvard 
College, and graduated there in the year 1683, at the 
age of nineteen years. He soon after commenced the 
study of Divinity. I do not know the period of clerical 
pupilage in those days, but it appears that he became 
the first minister of Deerfield in the spring of 1686. 
The peril of such an undertaking in those days, when 
the country had been laid in ruins but a short time be- 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



97 



fore by the bold incursions of King Philip of Mount 
Hope, one of the most enterprising chieftains, accord- 
ing to his means, of ancient or modern times, was such 
as to demand a slight view of the ancient history of the 
town of his adoption, and of those scenes of blood and 
carnage which our ancestors so largely shared and 
suffered, to transmit to us these fertile fields, these 
beautiful domains. Although he was not an active 
participator in the bloody battles of Lathrop and Tur- 
ner, yet they occurred in the age in which he lived, 
and on the very ground which he afterwards selected 
as the place of his abode, although surrounded by the 
same dangers and difficulties with which his immediate 
ancestors had to contend. It is therefore necessary 
that a slight notice of these events should be incorpo- 
rated with the history of his life. 

In the year 1651, the General Court of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay granted two thousand acres of land to the 
Indians for an Indian village at Natick, which was then 
a part of Dedham; and in compensation to Dedham 
therefor, they granted to the proprietors of Dedham 
eight thousand acres of any land heretofore unappro- 
priated within the jurisdiction, wherever the proprietors 
might choose to locate them. 

In 1663 messengers were sent to examine the coun- 
try. These were John Fairbanks and Lieutenant Daniel 
Fisher, who, on their return, gave a most glowing de- 
scription of the land on the banks of Deerfield River, 
which account may be found in Worthington's History 
of Dedham ; and the town of Dedham appointed six 
persons to repair to Deerfield, which was then called 
by the Indians Pocomptuck, and to locate the eight 



98 



MEMOIR OF 



thousand acres there. Captain John Pynchon, of 
Springfield, was employed by the town to purchase 
those lands of the Indians. He soon after performed 
that duty, and procured four deeds from the Indians, 
which were afterwards deposited in Deacon Aldis's 
box at Dedham. Dedham gave ninety-four pounds 
ten shillings for these deeds ; which sum was procured 
by an assessment on the common rights in the Ded- 
ham proprietary. 

In the spring of the year 1671 the first settlement of 
Deerfield began, and a few houses were erected on the 
main street, on lots drawn by the proprietors, on the 
town plat, which was then a forest. The location of 
the eight thousand acres, called the Dedham Grant, 
under the administration of Governor Bellingham, be- 
gan at Pocomptuck River, near Cheapside, and extend- 
ed north so as to contain all the meadow lands, the 
town plat, Bloody-Brook village, and all the flat lands 
within the hills to Hatfield line, and a better tract of the 
same quantity of land could not have been selected, 
even by men of the present day. Our ancestors well 
knew where to find good lands, or they never would 
have perilled life and liberty in an uncultivated and 
savage wilderness. 

The first inhabitants lived on peaceable terms with 
the Indians until the year 1675, at which time King 
Philip's war commenced. On the 1st of September of 
this year the town was attacked by the Indians, several 
houses were burnt, and one man, by the name of 
James Eggleston, was killed. On the 12th of the same 
month, when going to attend public worship on Sun- 
day, the inhabitants were attacked, and a man by the 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



99 



name of Samuel Harrington was severely wounded ; 
another was driven into a morass, taken, and killed. 
This was indeed a fatal month to the English settlers 
in this part of the country. On the 18th, six days after 
the last affray, an event occurred which clothed the 
country in sackcloth and ashes, — "the blackest day 
ever noticed in the annals of New England." I have 
reference to the slaughter of Captain Thomas Lathrop, 
of Essex County, and ninety of his men, who fell on 
this memorable day, surrounded by an army of seven 
or eight hundred Indians, probably headed by that 
wily commander and sagacious chieftain, King Philip 
himself, at a place called Bloody-Brook, in Deerfield, 
about five miles from the north village in this town. 

The general depot of English troops at Hadley at 
this time had increased so much as to make it neces- 
sary to ransack the country for provisions. A large 
quantity of grain, probably wheat, had been harvested 
and stacked at Deerfield. Captain Lathrop, and a com- 
pany of eighty men, besides a number of teamsters 
with their teams, were sent by Major Treat from this 
place to thrash out the grain and carry it to Hadley. 
Captain Moseley and a small body of Colonial troops 
were at this time stationed at Deerfield Street in the 
garrison. Captain Lathrop and his men thrashed out the 
grain, loaded the carts, and commenced their return to 
Hadley on the morning of the 18th, feeling themselves 
in perfect security. Unfortunately he was not so well 
versed in modern warfare as to know the necessity of 
flank guards, or he was totally unapprehensive of the 
danger which threatened him. After they had proceed- 
ed about four miles and a half through the country, 



100 



MEMOIR OF 



which was then covered with woods, and had just 
crossed the little stream now called Bloody-Brook, pre- 
cisely at the spot where the present bridge now crosses 
that stream, and exactly at the place where the monu- 
ment is erected in commemoration of the event, with- 
out any warning, they were attacked, probably by 
King Philip himself and seven or eight hundred fero- 
cious Indians, howling for vengeance, brandishing the 
deadly tomahawk and murderous scalping-knife. The 
troops had crossed the stream, and were waiting for 
the teams to come up. More than one account states 
that many of the soldiers had stacked or laid down their 
guns, and, in conscious security, were regaling them- 
selves upon the delicious grapes which were found 
there in great abundance, growing upon the vines 
which were entwined around the trees at that place. 
In a moment the guns of the whole body of Indians, 
who were lying in wait for their victims, poured de- 
struction upon their ranks, accompanied by the terrific 
yells of the savage war-whoop Captain Lathrop and 
the greater part of his soldiers fell on the first attack. 
Those who remained fought with the ferocity of tigers ; 
— but of what avail were skill and bravery against 
such a disparity of numbers ? Of nearly one hundred 
men who entered that field of death on that fatal 
morning, in the bloom of health, of youth, of manly 
beauty, only seven or eight remained to tell the melan- 
choly tale. All the rest were inhumanly butchered, 
and the "clods of the valley have rested upon their bp- 
soms for more than one hundred and sixty years. De- 
parted spirits, farewell ! we have often mourned your 
early exit and dropped the tear of commiseration at 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



101 



your much-lamented fate. These young men have 
always been considered " the flower of the county of 
Essex," and descended from the most respectable fam- 
ilies there. Mr. Hubbard, the historian, or Cotton 
Mather, calls this " the saddest day which ever oc- 
curred in New England." 

Captain Moseley, who was stationed at Deerfield 
Street, with Lieutenants Pickering and Savage, either 
hearing the firing at Bloody-Brook, or being apprised 
of the disaster of Captain Lathrop by the soldiers or 
teamsters who were so fortunate as to escape from 
the massacre, ran immediately to their relief, but was 
too late for the rescue. They found the Indians plun- 
dering the dead of such articles of value as remained 
about them. They attacked the Indians with great 
fury, and they were as much unprepared for such an 
assault as Lathrop was for their attack upon him. 
They charged them to and fro across the swamp, 
and destroyed them in great numbers. They finally 
drove them across a great western swamp, and dis- 
persed them in a distant forest. In all this skirmish- 
ing and destruction of the enemy, Captain Moseley 
lost only two men, and had six or eight wounded. 

Towards the close of the day, Major Treat, who was 
on a march from Hadley to Northfield, arrived upon 
the field of action with about one hundred men, Eng- 
lish, and Pequot and Mohegan Indians; and was of 
service to Captain Moseley and his men in helping him 
to disperse the enemy. Treat and Moseley retired to 
the garrison that night, and in the morning returned to 
bury Lathrop and his slain, when they found a party 
of Indians plundering the dead.. 



102 



MEMOIR OF 



I copy from General Hoyt's Antiquarian Researches, 
a work of standard merit, (and one which I hope will 
soon pass into a new and more beautiful edition,) the 
following singular instance of resuscitation from ap- 
parent death, which occurred at this time. " One Rob- 
ert Dutch, of Ipswich, who had been prostrated by a 
ball which contused his head, mauled by hatchets, 
stripped, and left for dead, recovered his senses, 
arose from the ground covered with blood, and in a 
state of nudity walked up to Moseley's men. He was 
furnished with clothes, carried to the English head- 
quarters, recovered, and lived several years in perfect 
health. ,, 

The Indians lost on that day about ninety-six men, 
who were, probably, most of them killed in the en- 
gagement with Moseley. About forty years after this 
event, during the ministry of Mr. Williams, our fore- 
fathers erected a rude monument to the memory of 
Captain Lathrop and his men ; but the different occu- 
pants of the soil have removed it so many times, that 
it has been extremely difficult to ascertain the precise 
spot where he or his men were buried. So much laud- 
able curiosity has been excited, of late, upon the sub- 
ject, that a meeting of several of the citizens of the 
ancient town of Deerfield was held in the summer of 
1835, for the purpose of making arrangements for 
commemorating the hundred and sixtieth anniversary 
of the destruction of Captain Lathrop and his men, for 
ascertaining, if possible, where their bones lie interred, 
and to take measures for the erection of a monument 
to their memories. The committee of investigation, 
guided by the tradition of some aged people, were so 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



103 



fortunate as to discover the precise spot where Lathrop 
and about thirty of his men were buried, and their 
bones were in a tolerable state of preservation, al- 
though they disintegrated upon exposure to the air. 
The grave is just in front of the door-yard of Stephen 
Whitney, Esq., and about twenty feet northwest of 
his front door. 

A grave, probably containing the bones of the nine- 
ty-six Indians who were slain on that day, was likewise 
found, by accident, about the same time, nearly one 
hundred rods west of the head of the road leading from 
Bloody-Brook to Conway, by Mr. Artemas Williams, 
and a little more than half a mile southwest of the 
grave of Lathrop ; an admirable situation for an Indian 
grave. 

The Hon. Edward Everett was appointed the orator 
for the occasion, and General Ep. Hoyt of this town 
was requested to prepare the address at the laying of 
the corner-stone for the monument. Extensive prep- 
arations were made for the commemoration of the 
event, and on the day of the celebration the high ex- 
pectations of the public were not disappointed. About 
six thousand people listened with enchained attention 
and rapturous delight to the lofty and thrilling tones of 
oratory proceeding from both the speakers, who did 
ample justice to the heroism and valor of our ances- 
tors. Other scarcely less animating addresses and 
sentiments were given at the table, and the festivities 
of the occasion were highly exhilarating. A collection 
of above two hundred dollars was shortly made for the 
monument, and we trust the crying sin of neglect will 
no longer rest upon their descendants. 



104 



MEMOIR OF 



" Sleep, soldiers of merit, sleep, gallants of yore, 
The hatchet is fallen, the struggle is o'er ; 
While the fir-tree is green, or the wind rolls a wave, 
The tear-drop shall brighten the turf of the brave." 

Deerfield was soon after this disaster deserted by 
the inhabitants, and the Indians reduced the settlement 
to ashes. 

On the 17th of May, 1676, Captain Turner marched 
from Hatfield at the head of about one hundred and 
sixty militia-men, to attack a large Indian force sta- 
tioned at the Great Falls, so called, on Connecticut 
River, in that part of Deerfield which is now Gill. The 
Indians had a large settlement there, as it was a fa- 
mous resort for salmon, bass, and shad. They had at 
that time a force there of several hundred men. Cap- 
tain Turner was from Boston, and he commanded the 
standing forces; the volunteers were commanded by 
Captain Holyoke of Springfield, Ensign Lyman of 
Northampton, and Sergeants Kellogg and Dickinson 
of Hadley. The Rev. Hope Atherton accompanied 
them. Benjamin Wait and Experience Hinsdale were 
pilots. I like to be particular, for 1 think the names of 
those who have fought and bled for us should be trans- 
mitted to posterity. 

There was another party of Indians at this time at 
Smead's Island, a little more than a mile below. After 
the defeat of Lathrop and the desertion of Deerfield, 
the Indians considered themselves in little danger of 
an attack from the English ; especially as their forces 
were not numerous at Hadley and the adjacent towns ; 
they therefore took little pains to protect themselves. 
In addition to this, two boys who had previously been 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



105 



taken by the Indians on the river below, by the names 
of Gillet and Stebbins, escaped from them, and in- 
formed the English of the situation of their enemies. 

This company, well mounted, and under the imme- 
diate command of Captain Turner, passed directly 
through Deerfield Street, which was a short time before 
in smoking ruins, and across the river at Cheapside, 
about two miles above, where there was a lodge of 
Indians, by whom they were heard as. they forded the 
river. They got up and examined the crossing-place, 
but finding no evidence of horses having passed, they 
supposed that the noise proceeded from moose crossing 
the river, and retired to rest. Turner now proceeded 
to Greenfield Meadow and passed Green River, and 
continued his route through pathless woods for about 
four miles, and came to a halt on the west bank of 
Fall River, where it empties into the Connecticut, about 
half a mile from the Indian camp above the falls. 
They here tied their horses, and left them in charge 
of a small sentry. It was now near day- break, but the 
Indians were asleep, not even guarded by a single sen- 
tinel. It is said they had been rioting the evening 
before upon milk and roast-beef, which they had stolen 
from the neighboring towns. The English sijently 
broke in upon their camp, and poured in a charge of 
musketry which almost completely deafened them. 
In their consternation and alarm they ran towards the 
river, crying out, " Mohawks ! Mohawks ! " supposing 
themselves attacked by these Indians. Great numbers 
jumped into their canoes, and many forgot their pad- 
dles, and were hurried precipitately over the falls, 
dashed to pieces, and drowned, while others were de- 
7 



106 



MEMOIR OF 



stroyed by the English, in the camp, in their cabins, 
and in their canoes. Report says, that Captain Holy- 
oke killed five with his own hand ; many others were 
equally brave, remembering the fate of Lathrop and 
his men. The loss on the part of the English was 
only one man. The Indian loss was very severe ; one 
hundred were killed on the spot ; one hundred and 
forty passed over the falls, and were killed or drowned, 
with the exception of one man. A few escaped to 
their companions. The Indians acknowledged their 
own loss to be three hundred, and among them many 
of their principal sachems. 

Turner, having defeated and destroyed the principal 
part of the Indians at this place, and burned and de- 
molished the encampment, collected his forces and 
returned towards the horses. In the mean time, a 
party of Indians from below attacked the guard who 
were protecting the horses. Another party of Indians 
about the same time were seen crossing the river 
above ; they were attacked by about twenty of Tur- 
ner's men, who volunteered their services, but the In- 
dians were too strong for them, and they forced them 
to retire ; with some difficulty they reached the main 
body of Turner's troops, in time to assist them in driv- 
ing back the Indians to the woods, who had attacked 
the guard with the horses. Turner now recommenced 
his march to Hatfield, Holyoke covering his rear with 
a part of the force. They were soon attacked by a 
party of Indians from Smead's Island, and by others 
who had united themselves with them from the east 
side of the river. They were often repulsed with 
great bravery and resolution by Captain Holyoke. 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



107 



His horse was shot under him, and the Indians at- 
tempted to seize him. - He shot the foremost with one 
of his pistols, which deterred the others from the at- 
tempt, and with the assistance of one of his men, who 
ran to his relief, he escaped from them. A captive at 
this time informed the English that King Philip was in 
the pursuit of them with an army of one thousand 
men. This, with the severe fighting in which they 
had just been engaged, alarmed them, and they sepa- 
rated into parties, and arranged themselves under dif- 
ferent leaders. The enemy were protected and cov- 
ered by a thick morass, or swamp, extending from the 
foot of the hill at the falls, nearly to Green River on 
the west and southwest. One of the parties was cut 
off by the Indians at the swamp, and another party, 
having got lost, were taken prisoners by them, and 
afterwards burnt to death in the Indian manner, which 
was by covering them with dry bark, setting it on fire, 
and then quenching it, and kindling it again, until the 
life of the sufferer was at an end. Captain Turner, 
who was but just partially recovering from a fit of 
sickness, with much toil and exertion reached Green 
River, which as he was passing, the enemy shot him 
from his horse, and he very soon expired. Captain 
Holyoke continued his retreat through Green River 
Meadows, probably across Petty's Plain in Deerfield, 
and Deerfield Meadows, continually harassed by the 
Indians, until he reached Hatfield, with the loss of 
thirty-eight men. 

As the detail of individual suffering and personal 
bravery is always listened to with deep interest and 
attention, I subjoin the following narration, the sub- 



108 



MEMOIR OF 



stance of which may be found in an attested copy of 
an account of the sufferings and hardships endured by 
Mr. Jonathan Wells of Hatfield, in this expedition, a 
youth then in the seventeenth year of his age, but who 
became afterwards much esteemed in public life, and 
who lived to a good old age, honored and beloved by 
his fellow-townsmen. 

Mr. Wells belonged to one of the parties who were 
under the necessity of contending with the Indians for 
the possession and recovery of their horses. He was 
fired upon by three Indians, after he had mounted his 
horse, and severely wounded ; one of the balls whizzed 
through his hair, another wounded his horse, and a 
third struck his thigh at a place where it had formerly 
been fractured by a cart-wheel passing over it. The 
ball did not entirely break the bone over anew, but 
merely fractured the end of one of the bones which 
projected over the other, it having been unskilfully 
managed at the time it was first set, or reduced. It 
was with great difficulty, after receiving this wound, 
that he could retain his seat in the saddle. The In- 
dians, seeing he was wounded, pursued him with great 
spirit. As soon as he began to recover a little from 
the shock of the wound, he saw the Indians pressing 
hard upon him, and, immediately presenting his gun 
towards them, he held them at bay, and when they 
again charged upon him, he had the good fortune to 
escape from them, and to reach his companions. He 
begged of Captain Turner to go back to the relief of 
his friends in the rear, as they were exposed to immi- 
nent danger from the Indians, or to tarry till they might 
overtake them. But Turner, probably thinking that 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



109 



self-preservation was the first law of nature, and being 
himself, with his little band, most critically situated, 
replied, "It is better to lose some than all." The 
army now separated into little squads, one leader cry- 
ing, " If you will save your lives, follow me " ; and 
another, " If you regard your safety, follow me." Mr. 
Wells followed a party whose course was towards a 
swamp, but perceiving that a body of the enemy was 
in that direction, he shifted his course, and fell in with 
another party, whose route was in a different direction. 
It was fortunate for him that he did so, for the party 
which he first joined were all killed by the Indians. 
His horse soon failed him, on account of the wound 
which he had received, and he himself was much de- 
bilitated from loss of blood, and was not able to keep 
up with this party, but was left by them, with only one 
companion, a man by the name of Jones, who was 
also wounded. The country through which they had 
to pass was a pathless forest, and they had no guide 
to direct their course. Mr. Wells was very soon sep- 
arated from his companion, who, on account of his 
wounds, was not able to go on with him. At this time 
he was very faint, and happening to have a nutmeg in 
his pocket, he ate it, and revived. He wandered about 
the woods for a considerable time, and by accident 
arrived upon the banks of Green River, which he fol- 
lowed up to a place called the Country Farms. After 
having passed the river, in attempting to rise a moun- 
tain on the west side of it, he became faint, and fell 
from his horse. He lay in this situation for a consid- 
erable time, but when he came to his senses, his horse 
was still standing beside him, and the bridle-reins were 



110 



MEMOIR OF 



on his hands. He got up and tied his horse to a tree, 
and again lay down. Upon more mature reflection, 
finding himself so extremely debilitated, he thought he 
should have no further use for his horse ; he humanely 
let him loose to seek a living for himself in the forest. 
He unfortunately did not think to take provisions from 
his portmanteau, which at that time contained an abun- 
dance. In the evening he built a fire to keep off the 
mosquitos, which were very troublesome to him. 
This came very near destroying him, for the flames 
spread with so much rapidity among the leaves and 
underbrush, that, in his faint and exhausted situation, 
he had great difficulty in escaping from them. He 
no sooner considered himself out of danger on this 
account, than he again laid himself down to rest. But 
new anticipations alarmed him. He feared the Indians 
would perceive his fire and direct their course towards 
him, and either kill or captivate him. He had a quan- 
tity of ammunition with him, which he was determined 
should not fall into their hands. After reserving a 
round or two for his own use, in case of an emergen- 
cy, he cast the rest of it from him, to a great distance. 
After having waited a considerable time, and perceiv- 
ing that the flames had extended themselves over a 
considerable territory, he began to be encouraged, and 
filled his wounds with tow, for lint, bound them up 
with his pocket-handkerchief, and laid down to sleep. 
During his slumbers he dreamed that his grandfather 
appeared to him, and informed him that he had strayed 
out of the right course to Hatfield, and that he must 
direct his course down the river, and pursue that direc- 
tion till he came to the termination of a mountain, 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



Ill 



where there was an extensive plain, on which he must 
continue his travels until he arrived home. It is very 
singular that he did not at first go down the river, in- 
stead of following it up, as he must have known, if he 
had reflected a moment, that this was the right direc- 
tion to Deerfield Street and Hatfield. Upon awaking 
he felt himself stronger, his wounds had ceased bleed- 
ing, and, making use of his gun as a staff, he was able 
slowly to walk. When he perceived the rising sun 
the next morning, he was satisfied that he had wan- 
dered from his course, and upon observation he con- 
cluded that he was now farther from home than he 
was when at the falls, the place of action. His first 
thought was to pay no attention to his dream, but, after 
taking all these things into consideration, he concluded 
to be governed by it. There was nothing supernatural 
in this dream. His sleep was probably disturbed, but 
not so much so that he could not reflect that this must 
be the natural course for him to pursue. He therefore 
travelled down the river, and came to the end of the 
mountain, and soon arrived upon the plain, where he 
immediately found a foot-path which conducted him to 
the road where his companions had previously re- 
turned. Upon his arrival at Deerfield River, he strug- 
gled with great difficulty in passing it, the stream being 
so powerful as to throw his lame leg over the other, 
and prevent his wading it. ' Several of his first efforts 
were entirely unavailing. However, still using his gun 
as a staff, he at length succeeded in reaching the oppo- 
site shore. Upon rising the bank, being much ex- 
hausted, he lay down under a walnut sapling, and fell 
asleep. On awaking, he perceived an Indian in a ca- 



112 



MEMOIR OF 



noe, coming directly towards him. He felt himself in 
a forlorn and perilous situation. He was lame, and 
not able to escape by running, and his gun was so 
filled with sand and dirt, that he could not discharge it. 
As soon as the Indian saw him, Mr. Wells pointed his 
gun at him, which frightened him so much that he 
jumped out of his canoe and left his gun behind, and 
escaped down the river. Mr. Wells, now concluding 
that he would alarm the whole tribe, who were but a 
short distance from him, went into an adjacent swamp, 
where he found two logs lying near together, covered 
with rubbish. He crept between them, and covered 
himself as well as he could with this rubbish. He 
very soon heard the tread of the Indians, but dared not 
look out from his hiding-place. When the noise had 
ceased, and he supposed they were gone, he ventured 
out from his covert, and proceeded on his journey. 
He found some horses' bones in Deerfield Meadows, 
and he was so very hungry that he ate some flesh 
which the crows had left upon them ; he also found 
some rotten beans where the Indians had been thrash- 
ing, which he ate. These, with the exception of two 
blue-bird's eggs, which he found on the way, were the 
only provisions he tasted till he arrived at Hatfield. 
On Saturday night, a little after sundown, he arrived 
at the town plat in Deerfield Street, but as he found no 
inhabitants there, the town having been burnt a short 
time before, he proceeded on his journey in the even- 
ing. 

His sufferings were now so great, that he often laid 
himself down to die, under an expectation that he 
should never rise again. On the morning of the Sab- 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



113 



bath he had not advanced any farther than Muddy- 
Brook, about five miles from the town plat. Here he 
discovered a human head, probably of one of Lathrop's 
soldiers, who was killed there the autumn before, which 
had been dug up by beasts of prey. Notwithstanding 
his distressed situation, he sought for and found the 
grave, and laid the head with the body, and covered it 
with billets of wood in the best manner he was able, 
to protect it from wild beasts. Upon leaving the brook, 
and entering upon the plain, he became very faint and 
thirsty, but could get no water for some time. He, 
however, was frequently refreshed by holding his face 
in the smoke of burning pine-knots, which he often 
found, as the woods had been on fire. This was a 
frequent custom of the inhabitants in those days, to 
enable them to pursue their game with greater facility, 
and to give more free access to their cattle in feeding. 
He arrived home at noon on the Sabbath, and was 
received with great joy by his friends, who believed 
him to be dead. He suffered extremely from his 
wounds, and many times afterwards was confined to 
his bed for six months at a time. It was more than 
four years before he entirely recovered. 

The following is an extract of a sermon delivered by 
the Rev. Mr. Atherton, pastor of the church at Hat- 
field. Mr. Atherton was in this action, and the sermon 
was delivered on the Sabbath after his return : — " In 
the hurry and confusion of the retreat, I was separated 
from the army. The night following I wandered up 
and down among the dwelling-places of the enemy, 
but none of them discovered me. The next day I ten- 
dered myself to them a prisoner, for no way of escape 



114 



MEMOIR OF 



appeared, and I had been a long time without food ; but 
notwithstanding I offered myself to them, yet they ac- 
cepted not my offer ; when I spoke, they answered not ; 
and when I moved towards them, they fled. Finding 
they would not accept of me as a prisoner, I deter- 
mined to take the course of the river, and, if possible, 
find the way home ; and after several days of hunger, 
fatigue, and danger, I reached Hatfield." 

The Indians were very superstitious with regard to 
priests or ministers of the Gospel, believing them to be 
supernatural beings. This may account for their con- 
duct to Mr. Atherton at this time. 

The government of Massachusetts, in compensation 
for the services of Captains Turner and Holyoke and 
their men in this engagement, granted them and their 
successors the township called Bernardston, then Fall- 
town.* 

The following year, 1677, an attempt was made to 
resettle the town. Very soon after, however, a num- 
ber of the people were slain, and the town was desert- 
ed. A man by the name of John Root was killed on 
the 19th of September of this year, and three others, by 
the. names of Sergeant Plympton, Quintin Stockwell, 
and Benoni Stebbins, were taken prisoners. Stebbins 
escaped and returned to Deerfield, Plympton was burnt 
at the stake, and it is said that the Indians compelled a 
Mr. Dickinson to lead him to it, and that he went to it 
with cheerfulness. In the year 1682 the settlers re- 
turned, and for several years were unmolested by the 
Indians. This year the; town of Deerfield was incor- 
porated. 



* See Appendix and Notes. 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



115 



At the time of the additional grant of the Legislature 
to the eight thousand acres, in the year 1673, so as to 
constitute Pocomptuck a township of an area of seven 
square miles, one of the conditions of the grant was, 
that the inhabitants should settle an orthodox minister 
within three years. The settlements on Connecticut 
River were at that time, and for a long time afterwards, 
in a state of continual jeopardy from savage warfare 
and Indian incursions. The great battles of Lathrop 
and Turner had paralyzed the enterprise of the pio- 
neers of the wilderness, and it was a long time before 
they recovered their energies. It was not till the year 
1682 that any great efforts were made at re-settlement. 
A few inhabitants returned that year, and for several 
succeeding years they were not much molested by the 
Indians. On account of these disturbances, the town 
did not comply with the conditions of the grant, yet no 
exceptions were taken by the government. On the con- 
trary, additional grants were afterwards made to the 
limits of the town. 

In March, 1686, Mr. Williams was ordained the first 
minister of the Gospel in Deerfield, when he was but 
little more than twenty-one years of age. He must 
have been shielded by the whole armor of the Christian 
warfare, to have risked his life in so hazardous an un- 
dertaking. The following is the agreement between 
him and his people, copied from the early records of 
the town. 

"The inhabitants of Deerfield, to encourage Mr. 
John Williams to settle amongst them, to dispense the 
blessed word of truth unto them, have made proposi- 
tions to him as followeth : — 



116 



MEMOIR OF 



" That they will give him sixteen cow-commons of 
meadow land, with a home-lot that lieth on the meet- 
ing-house hill ; — that they will build him a house forty- 
two feet long, twenty feet wide, with a lento on the 
back side of the house, to finish said house, to fence 
his home-lot, and, within two years after this agree- 
ment, to build him a barn, and break up his ploughing 
land.. For yearly salary, to give him sixty pounds a 
year for the present, and four or five years after 
this agreement, to add to his salary, and make it eighty 
pounds. 

44 The committee approved and ratified the above 
propositions on the condition Mr. Williams settle 
among them. 

44 Attest, Medad Pumby, by order of the committee." 

44 At a meeting of the inhabitants of Deerfield, De- 
cember 17, 1686, there was granted to Mr. John Wil- 
liams a certain piece of land lying within the meadow 
fence, beginning at Joseph Sheldon's north line, and so 
runs to Deerfield River, north, or northeast, the own- 
ers of the common fence maintaining it as it now is 
at the time of the grant." 

There was a further agreement between Mr. Wil- 
liams and the town in relation to his salary, in 
1696-7: — 

44 The town to pay their salary to me in wheat, 
pease, Indian corn, and pork, at the prices stated ; viz. 
wheat at 3s. 3d. per bushel, Indian corn at 2s. per 
bushel, fatted pork at 2%d. per lb., these being the 
terms of the bargain made with me at the first. 

(Signed,) " John Williams." 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



117 



About seven years after his settlement, on the 6th of 
June, 1693, Indian depredations again commenced at 
Deerfield, and the widow Hepzibah Wells, of his so- 
ciety, and three of her daughters, were knocked down 
and scalped, one of whom recovered from the terrific 
maiming. Thomas Broughton and his wife and three 
children were also killed at the same time. A few 
months afterwards, a man by the name of Martin 
Smith was taken prisoner and carried to Canada, but 
he returned in a few years. 

The fort at Deerfield was again attacked on the 16th 
of September, 1694, by Monsieur Castreen, and an 
Indian force under his command. The attack was un- 
successful, but a boy by the name of Daniel Severance 
was killed in the meadows, and two soldiers by the 
names of Beaumont and Richard Lyman were wound- 
ed in the fort. A schoolmistress by the name of Mrs. 
Hannah Beaumont and her scholars were almost mi- 
raculously preserved ; being fired upon by the Indians 
as they ran from the house to the fort, the bullets whis- 
tled about their ears, but not one of them was in the 
least injured, although the Indians were very near 
them. 

As Mr. Joseph Barnard and a party of our men were 
on their return from Hatfield on the 18th of August, 
1695, they were attacked by a party of Indians who 
had concealed themselves beneath a bridge in the south 
meadows about two miles south of the street, on the 
road leading to the Bars. Barnard himself was badly 
wounded in his body and in both hands ; his horse was 
shot under him, and fell dead. Through the instru- 
mentality and courage of Godfry Nims, he was rescued 



118 



MEMOIR OF 



from the enemy and brought to the fort at Deerfield, 
where he lived to the 6th of September, when he died, 
greatly lamented. The oldest monument which we 
can now find in our old burying-ground is erected to 
his memory, bearing date 1695. The bridge is still in 
the same situation, across the brook where Mr. Barnard 
fell, as it was then, and it is called Indian Bridge. 

On the 16th of September, 1696, as two men, by 
the names of Thomas Smead and John Gillet, were out 
from the fort hunting, up Green River, towards the 
north part of the present town of Greenfield, they were 
attacked, and Gillet was captured by the Indians. 
Smead was so fortunate as to make his escape. 

The Indians now made a rapid advance to the fort at 
Deerfield village, and took Mr. Daniel Belding and a 
son and daughter (Nathaniel and Esther). They also 
killed his wife and three children, and wounded two 
other children. They both recovered, although the son 
had his skull fractured by an Indian tomahawk, and a 
portion of brain issued from the wound. 

In July, 1698, a man by the name of Nathaniel 
Pomroy was killed by the enemy, as he was out in pur- 
suit of some Indians up the river, who had been com- 
mitting depredations at Hatfield. General Hoyt, in his 
Antiquarian Researches, gives this account of the 
transaction : — " About the middle of July, a short 
time before sunset, a small party of Indians killed a 
man and boy in Hatfield Meadows, on the banks of 
Connecticut River, and captured two lads, Samuel 
Dickinson, and one Charley ; they put them on board 
of canoes and proceeded up the river. The intelli- 
gence being received at Deerfield, thirteen miles above, 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



119 



twelve men were detached to that place to incercept 
the Indians, Proceeding about twenty miles, they se- 
lected a favorable spot on the right bank of the river, 
and lay till morning, when they discovered the Indians 
coming up near the opposite bank with the captured 
lads, in two canoes. Carefully marking their objects, 
the whole party gave the Indians an unexpected fire, 
by which one was wounded. The others, with one of 
the lads, leaped from the canoes and gained the shore. 
They then attempted to kill the lads, but receiving an- 
other well-directed fire, they fell back ; on which the 
lad on the shore joined his companion in the canoe, and 
both escaped across the river to their deliverers. Five 
or six of the party then embarked with the design of 
seizing the other canoe, which at this time had lodged 
at an island a little below. Two Indians who lay se- 
creted not far distant fired and killed Nathaniel Pom- 
roy, one of the party. The Indians then retired into 
the woods, and the English returned to Deerfield. The 
place where this exploit happened is a short distance 
above the mouth of Ashuelot River, where the Con- 
necticut makes a remarkable flexure at the present 
town of Vernon, in Vermont." 

In the year 1699 the town ordered the pickets round 
the old fort to be repaired. Heavy penalties were an- 
nexed for the non-fulfilment of these orders. The 
pickets were probably commenced by our people in 
King Philip's war, which began about the year 1689. 
At the time the orders of the town were issued, they 
were considerably out of repair. At a time of savage 
warfare and Indian incursions, these precautions were 
absolutely necessary. These pickets included about 



120 



MEMOIR OF 



twenty acres, and the old house was inclosed near the 
northwest angle of them. Many dwelling-houses were 
at the same time rudely fortified, by being surrounded 
with cleft or round sticks of timber placed erect in the 
ground, and the walls were lined with bricks, which 
were considered to be musket-proof, — a very insecure 
mode of protection, even against savages. 

On the 8th of October, 1703, two prisoners were 
taken from Deerfield, in the meadows, near B rough- 
ton's Pond, at or near the north end of the street, by 
the names of Zebediah Williams and John Nims, and 
carried to Canada. Nims escaped with some other 
prisoners, and after much fatigue and danger returned 
to Deerfield. Williams died in Canada. 

Let us now pause for a moment, and contrast our 
situation at the present day with that of our unhappy 
ancestors, who have toiled and bled to transmit to us 
this rich inheritance, these beautiful domains. We are 
now in peace and security, enjoying the blessings of 
rational liberty, and surrounded by all which can make 
life desirable. The country is densely inhabited ; our 
roads are good, and intelligence can be conveyed to 
the remotest quarters in a short space of time. We 
are in no danger of invasion from a foreign or a do- 
mestic foe. We need no muskets to protect us while 
at labor in our fields, no guards to defend us during 
the silent watches of the night. The blood of our sons 
no longer fattens our. cornfields ; no savage war-whoop 
awakens the sleep of our cradles. Our firesides are 
our altars, and we can enjoy them unmolested. How 
different was the case with our forefathers ! The 
country was new ; it was infested with savages thirst- 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 121 

ing for blood. Their population was thin, confined 
to a few villages, and the inhabitants of these had as 
much as they could do to defend themselves from 
Indian barbarities. Few roads but bridle and foot- 
paths, and all attempts to convey information, and all 
calls for succor, tedious and slow, at the imminent haz- 
ard of an ambuscade or life. Self-preservation was the 
first and only law. It was unsafe to go into a neigh- 
bor's house without a musket, much more into the field. 
Their houses were within the rude walls of a picket- 
ed fort, and almost the only communication between 
them was by means of passages under ground from 
cellar to cellar. Sentinels always guarded their houses 
by night. It was a state of continual jeopardy, and in 
the country of an implacable and vindictive savage 
foe. No succors could be received from government ; 
every thing depended upon individual exertion. Such 
was the situation of our fathers in this town on the 
eventful morning of the 29th of February, old style, 
1704. 

The names of several of the captives who were 
taken from Deerfield, and who were left in Canada 
after Mr. Williams's return, have been found among 
the Indians near Montreal. There were several inter- 
marriages, and their names have not become extinct 
in that vicinity. As lately as the year 1756, Mary 
Harris, who was one of the female prisoners, and a 
child at the time of the capture of the town, resided at 
Cahnawaga. She was at that time a married woman, 
and had several children, one of whom was an officer 
in the service of France. A gentleman from Montreal 
said that he saw, at the Lake of the Two Mountains, a 
3 



122 



MEMOIR OF 



French girl, who told him that her grandmother was 
Thankful Stebbins, who was taken from Deerfield in 
1704. General Hoyt has procured the names of the 
principal part of the prisoners who were taken at Deer- 
field, and who were left in Canada after the return of 
Mr. Williams. They are as follows : — 

William Brooks, Mary Brooks, Daniel Crowfoot, 
Samuel Carter, John Carter, Mary Carter, Elizabeth 
Corse, Abigail Denio, Mary Field, Freedom French, 
Abigail French, Mary Harris, Samuel Hastings, Eb- 
enezer Hoit, Thomas Hurst, Joanna Kellog, Abigail 
Nims, Jeremiah Richards, Josiah Rising, Ebenezer 
Stebbins, Thankful Stebbins, Joseph Stebbins, Eliza- 
beth Stevens, Waitstill Warner, Eunice Williams. 

Many of the prisoners became very much attached 
to the Indians and their mode of life, and some of 
them were very loath to leave them after they were re- 
deemed. A lad, by the name of Jonathan Hoit, who 
was taken at the time of the destruction of the town, at 
the age of sixteen years, was very fond of them. He 
resided with them two years and a half, at a place 
called Lorette, upon the River St. Charles, not far 
from Quebec. He learnt their language so perfectly, 
that he never forgot it to the day of his death, which 
was in the ninety-second year of his age. Soon after 
his return to Deerfield, his former Indian master came 
down to make him a visit, and he was kindly received 
by him, and treated with respect. Jonathan was re- 
deemed by Major Dudley, son of Governor Dudley, of 
Massachusetts, in the following manner, as related by 
Colonel Elihu Hoyt, one of his descendants, in his 
History of the First Settlement of Deerfield, — a small 
pamphlet in a duodecimo form. 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



123 



" The Indians were in the habit of raising and bring- 
ing to market garden sauce, &c. One day Major 
Dudley saw young Hoit in the street ; he said to him, 
4 Are you not an English boy ? ' He answered, 1 Yes.' 
4 Do you not wish to go home and see your friends ? ' 
4 1 do,' was the answer. 4 Where is your master ? ' 
said the Major. ' Somewhere in the city,' answered 
the boy. 4 Bring him to me,' said he. The boy now 
tripped over the ground with a light heart, in pursuit 
of his master, who soon came. The agent said to the 
Indian, 4 1 will give you this for the boy,' holding out 
to him a purse of twenty dollars. The temptation was 
too great to be resisted ; the bargain was made, the 
money handed over, and the Indian went away well 
satisfied. The gentleman immediately sent the boy 
on board a ship then lying in the river for the recep- 
tion of the ransomed prisoners. The agent was aware 
that, when the Indian had leisure to reflect, he would 
return and make a proposition to give up the money, 
and take his boy again. He was not mistaken in his 
conjecture ; he soon came back, and desired to give up 
the money for the boy ; but was told he could not have 
him, for he was out of his reach. The Indian went 
away lamenting that he had parted with his favorite 
captive boy for a few dumb dollars, that would neither 
fish nor hunt. By this means the captive was restored 
to his home and his friends." 

About the time that Mr. Williams left Canada,, new 
troubles began to arise in that Province. Letters were 
received from Mississippi, written in the preceding 
May, stating that the plague was prevailing there, and 
that one hundred and fifty Frenchmen had died within 



124 



MEMOIR OF 



a very short space of time, and that the tribe of Indians 
there called the Lazilouways were very boisterous, and 
had wounded a Jesuit severely, and had killed his ser- 
vant, a Frenchman. Farther information reached 
them in July, that the Indians upon the river were en- 
gaged in war with each other, and the French who 
resided amongst them were in great danger ; that the 
Mitchel Macquinas had commenced war against the 
Miziamnies, and killed a friar, three Frenchmen, and 
eleven Indians, at a place called the Straits, where they 
were erecting a fort for the purpose of traffic ; they 
had also taken sixteen Frenchmen prisoners, and burned 
their trading-houses. These things greatly perplexed 
the French in Canada ; the Jesuits strove hard to paci- 
fy them, but their troubles rather increased than sub- 
sided when they left Canada; for the last letters from 
the French prisoners in those regions state that the 
Indians had sent out two companies, one of one hun- 
dred and sixty, and one of one hundred and fifty-nine, 
against the savages at the Straits, and they were fear- 
ful that they would attack the French as well as the 
Indians. 

Mr. Williams did not immediately return to Deer- 
field after his emancipation from the French and In- 
dians. He probably had some doubts whether he 
should again settle in the ministry in Deerfield. On 
the 30th of November, 1706, nine or ten days after his 
arrival at Boston, the town chose commissioners, viz. 
" Captain Thomas French and Captain Jonathan Wells, 
to go down to the bay for them, and in their behalf to 
act and treat with their pastor, the Rev. John Williams, 
in order to his re-settlement with them again in the 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



125 



work of the ministry, as also to take advice and coun- 
sel of the elders in our county for the management of 
the work, as also to put up a petition to the General 
Court, or Council, for a grant of money for the en- 
couragement of the Rev. Mr. John Williams in his re- 
settlement in said work with them, and in all these 
particulars to act and do according to the best of their 
discretion." Mr. Williams, after serious consideration, 
accepted the call, although the war still continued with 
unabated fury, and the inhabitants were kept in a con- 
tinual state of alarm. 

On the 9th of January, 1707, the town agreed to 
build a house for him, 44 as big as Ensign Sheldon's, 
and a back room as big as may be thought conven- 
ient." Ensign Sheldon's house was the old picketed 
fort,* which was recently torn down. On the 3d of 
April the town voted, 44 that they would pay unto Mr. 
John Williams 20 pounds in money, and every male 
head of 16 years and upwards, one day's work a 
piece ; those that have teams, a day with their teams 
for the year." They also voted 44 to pay Thomas 
Wells for boarding Mr. Choate the last half-year he 
preached in Deerfield." On the 17th of November 
they voted 44 to send a petition to the General Court 
for a grant of money towards the maintenance of the 
Rev. John Williams in the work of the ministry in 
Deerfield." They also gave him and his heirs for 
ever a large tract of land adjoining his house, and in 
the meadows. 

Indian depredations continued for many years after 



See engraving. 



126 



MEMOIR OF 



the re-settlement of Mr. Williams. Soon after the de- 
struction of the town at the time he was captivated, the 
inhabitants rebuilt it. In May, 1704, Mr. John Allen 
and his wife were killed at a place called the Barrs, 
and in the summer of the same year, Sergeant John 
Hawks was attacked by the Indians, but escaped to 
Hatfield with a slight wound upon his hand ; and in 
July a man by the name of Thomas Russell was killed 
by them at the north part of the town. 

August, 1708. As a scout from Deerfield were re- 
turning from White River, in Vermont, they were at- 
tacked by the Indians, and a man by the name of 
Barber was killed, he having killed the Indian who 
fired upon him, so near together did they discharge 
their guns. Martin Kellogg was captivated ; the rest 
were so fortunate as to escape. On the 26th of Octo- 
ber of this year, Mr. Ebenezer Field was killed by the 
Indians near Bloody-Brook. 

In the month of April, 1709, Mehuman Hinsdale, a 
son of one of the first settlers of Deerfield, and the first 
male child ever born there, was taken prisoner by the 
Indians, as he was driving his team between Hatfield 
and Northampton, and carried by them to Canada. 
From thence he was carried to France, and from 
France to England, and brought from the latter place 
to Deerfield.* The succeeding month of the same 
year, Lieutenant John Wells and John Burt, inhabitants 
of Deerfield, were killed in a skirmish with the Indians 
on French or Onion River, in Vermont. They, with 
others, had been out on an expedition against the en- 



* See Appendix and Notes. 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



127 



emy, as far as Lake Champlain, where they had killed 
several of them. 

It seems that the Indians and their commanders were 
not yet satisfied with their hostilities upon this land, 
abounding with milk and honey, for another attempt 
was madejto sack or destroy the town in the month of 
June, 1709, by Rouville, one of the brothers who made 
the successful attack upon the town in 1704. His 
force consisted of one hundred and eighty French and 
Indians ; but vigorous efforts were now made by the 
inhabitants for the defence, many of whom had re- 
cently returned from Canada, and their late disasters 
had taught them military prudence, and inspired them 
with courage in opposing the savage foes. The en- 
emy, from these preparations, thought it most prudent 
to withdraw their troops and abandon the attack. They 
did not quit the place until they had taken Joseph Cles- 
son and John Arms prisoners. Jonathan Williams and 
Matthew Clesson were killed at the time, and Lieuten- 
ant Mattoon and Isaac Taylor were wounded, but both 
of them fortunately survived. I am inclined to think 
that this Joseph Clesson was the one who was so cruel- 
ly treated by the Indians in Canada in one of their 
sports, which was to cause him to run the gantlet. 
The account of the transaction is as follows : — The 
Indians arranged themselves in two rows facing each 
other, armed with clubs. They then pinioned the hands 
of the captive, and forced him to run through the ranks, 
while every Indian gave him a severe blow with his 
club. Mr. Clesson was severely mangled by them in 
this way, while in Canada and under the protection of 
the French. His lower jaw was broken, and he was 



128 



MEMOIR OF 



otherwise most cruelly bruised. He was ever after- 
wards extremely indignant against them for this out- 
rage, and the bare mention of an Indian would rouse a 
resentment in his breast as furious as a lion in its rage. 

Mr. Williams about this time was earnestly solicited 
to accept the office of chaplain in the army in the ex- 
pedition against Canada under General Hill and Ad- 
miral Walker. He had been previously requested to 
accept the same in the expedition against Port Royal, 
under the command of Colonel March, with seven hun- 
dred men, in the year 1707. Soon after, he was ap- 
pointed a commissioner in the winter expedition to 
Canada, under the command of Colonel Stoddard, for 
the purpose of redeeming prisoners. They were suc- 
cessful in redeeming many of their fellow-citizens, but 
could not obtain the daughter of Mr. Williams. 

Mr. Williams's salary was for some time probably 
too small to support him, and the General Court al- 
lowed him two islands in Connecticut River, opposite 
to the town of Deerfield, now called Smead's and 
Corse's islands, containing between thirty and forty 
acres, in consequence of his petitioning on behalf of 
the town for an extension of its territories. This peti- 
tion was granted, and the line then extended west from 
Connecticut River nine miles, as far as the western 
boundaries of Northampton and Hatfield. The town 
was then about fourteen miles in length and nine in 
breadth, and occupied the towns now embracing 
Greenfield, Conway, Shelburne, Gill, and a part of 
Whately. 

On the 30th of September, 1712, a scout was sent 
from Deerfield, under the command of Samuel Taylor, 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



129 



to the Hudson or North River, as it was then called, in 
the State of New York. They were attacked by the 
Indians on this day, and a man by the name of Samuel 
Andros was killed ; Jonathan Barret was wounded, and 
he and William Stanford were taken prisoners, carried 
to Canada, and redeemed by Lieutenant Samuel Wil- 
liams, who was there with a flag of truce, and they re- 
turned to Deerfield after an absence of two months. 
From the year 1712 to 1720, the people of Deerfield 
were not much molested by the Indians. 

To show the continued attachment of the people of 
Deerfield to Mr. Williams, the town voted to provide 
him his wood at its own expense, in addition to his sal- 
ary, and to procure him the value of sixty ordinary 
loads in the year 1724- 5. 

In the latter part of June, 1724, as a scout were re- 
turning from the north part of Greenfield, near Rocky 
Mountain, to the fort at Deerfield, they were attacked 
by the Indians, and Ebenezer Sheldon, Thomas Col- 
ton, and Jeremiah English, a friendly Indian, were 
killed. The Indians were dispersed by the rear of the 
scout coming upon them suddenly. In the same year 
two men, by the names of Lieutenant Timothy Childs 
and Samuel Allen, who had been at work in the North 
Meadows, were attacked by a party of Indians who lay 
concealed in the woods at Pine Hill. They were both 
wounded, but fortunately recovered. 

On the 25th of August, 1725, as Deacon Field, Dea- 
con Childs, and several others from Deerfield, were 
passing up the road near Green River Farms, they 
were ambuscaded by the Indians, whom the party had 
previously discovered, as they were posted on an emi- 



130 



MEMOIR OF 



nence. An Indian was killed by John Wells. The 
party afterwards returned towards a mill, but one of 
them, Deacon Field, was severely wounded, the ball 
passing through the lower part of the right side of the 
abdomen, cutting off several folds of the mesentery, 
which protruded through the wound to the extent of 
two inches, and was cut off even with the body. The 
ball then passed between the two lowest ribs, fractur- 
ing the last one. It likewise took off one of his thumbs 
at the root, and the bone of the forefinger, and lodged 
in the hand between the fore and second finger. The 
ball was extracted, and a perfect cure of all his wounds 
was effected, by Dr. Thomas Hastings, in less than 
three weeks. 

Mr. Williams for many years devoted much of his 
time and attention to the pursuits of science and litera- 
ture, added to the cares and obligations attendant upon 
his professional duties as a faithful minister of the 
Gospel. For the times in which he lived, he was a 
writer of no mean abilities. He has not left behind 
him many of his published productions. I recollect 
only to have seen his " Redeemed Captive returning to 
Zion," in which he gives an account of his captivity 
and sufferings, and a Sermon preached at Boston, De- 
cember 6, 1706, soon after his return from Canada. 
These works evince talent and great piety. The age 
in which he lived was not one of publications like the 
present, or doubtless more of his works would have 
been published. He was a very constant attendant 
upon the annual convention of ministers in the then 
Province at Boston, when he was always treated with 
respect and attention. In 1728 he preached an inter- 
esting discourse at that convention. 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



131 



I have seen some of his manuscript productions, 
which are interesting. In some of his writings, under 
the head of Philosophy, he treats of Mists and Fogs, — 
of Wind, — of Water, or the Doctrine of Hydrostatics, 

— of Matter, — of the Earth, — of Fire, — of Beasts, 
Birds, and Fishes, — of Insects, — of the Julian Period, 

— of the Method of Drawing a Meridian Line upon an 
Horizontal Plane, ■ — of Mercury, — of Vulcan, — of 
Mars, — of an Echo, &c, &c. These topics show that 
he had a philosophical turn of mind, and a greater 
taste for the abstruse sciences than is usual to be found 
at that period. 

The following is his description of a drunkard, which 
will give some idea of his style of writing, and will 
show that the habit of intoxication is not confined to 
the present day : — 

"A DRUNKARD DESCRIBED. 

" Though wine is so beneficial to this life, that in 
vila vitam hominis Esseidieros, and how many say 
that the happiness of one consists in the enjoyment of 
the other ; but do not consider that, if wine be the cra- 
dle of life, yet it is the grave of the reason, for if men 
do not constantly sail in the Red Sea of claret, their 
souls are ofttimes drowned therein. It blinds them, 
and leaves them under darkness, especially when it be- 
gins to draw forth sparkles and little stars from their 
eyes. Then the body being drowned in drink, the 
mind floats, or else* is stranded. Thus too great love 
of the vine is pernicious to life, for from it come more 
faults than grapes, and it breeds more mischief than 
pleasures. Would you see an instance of this, observe 



132 



MEMOIR OF 



a drunken man. 0 beast! — see how his head reels 
and totters, his hands sink, his feet fail, his hands 
tremble, his mouth froths, his cheeks are flabby, his 
eyes sparkle and water, his words are unintelligible, 
his tongue falters and stops, his throat sends forth a 
nasty, loathsome stench ! — But what do I do ? There 
is no end to his filthiness." 

Soon after Mr. Williams's return to Deerfield, he 
was married, a second time, to the daughter of Captain 
Allen of Windsor, Connecticut. She, as well as his 
first wife, were granddaughters of the Rev. Mr. War- 
ham, formerly pastor of Windsor. By his second wife 
he had five children. Eight of his children survived 
him, four sons and four daughters. His three eldest 
sons, Eleazer, Stephen, and Warham, were settled in 
the ministry at Mansfield, Conn., at Springfield, and at 
Watertown, Mass. Stephen received the degree of 
Doctor of Divinity from Dartmouth College, but was 
educated at Harvard. He lived to a great old age. 
His son Elijah, by his second wife, was educated at 
Harvard College, and lived at Deerfield, where he was 
much respected as an honorable merchant and an able 
magistrate. His eldest daughter married Mr. Meacham, 
the former pastor of Coventry, Conn. 

Mr. Williams died at Deerfield on the 12th of June, 
1729, in the sixty-fifth year of his age and the forty- 
fourth of his ministry. He was attacked with a fit of 
apoplexy on the morning of the 9th. It was perceived 
upon speaking to him, that he had the exercise of 
reason, but he was never able to articulate distinctly 
more than two or three words after he was taken ill. 



REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. 



133 



The writer of his obituary notice, which was pub- 
lished in the Boston News-Letter, the first newspaper 
ever printed in New England, thus speaks of him : — 

"God, who first sent him to us, and inclined his 
heart to settle with us in our small beginnings, hath 
made him a great blessing unto us. His heart was en- 
gaged in his work, and was abundant in his labors, 
both in season and out of season, plainly, faithfully, 
and frequently warning, urging, and entreating both 
elder and younger unto piety and perseverance in it. 
He was much in prayer, and singularly gifted in it. 
We hope through grace he has left many seals of his 
ministry among us. The Divine Providence which 
fixed his post in one of the frontier towns of the Prov- 
ince, fitted him for it by giving him patience and 
cheerfulness of spirit; so that he was wonderfully car- 
ried through all the difficulties, distractions, and dan- 
gers that he encountered. And his prayers, counsel, 
and example did not a little contribute to the support 
and encouragement of his people from time to time." 

And another writer, the Rev. Rodolphus Dickinson, 
of this town, in his View of Deerfield, thus beautifully 
eulogizes him : — 

u The character of Mr. Williams was extensively 
known, and held in high estimation ; as may be 
learned, aside from other respectful attentions, by his 
appointment to preach to a general convention of the 
clergymen of Massachusetts at Boston. He is repre- 
sented by his contemporaries, who have witnessed his 
efforts before the most enlightened and powerful audi- 
tories in the Province, as a powerful and affecting 
preacher. He is also commended for his domestic 



134 



MEMOIR OF REV! JOHN WILLIAMS. 



virtues, his eminent piety, humility, sincerity, and 
goodness of heart. His voluntary abandonment of the 
scenes of his beloved nativity, secure from the incur- 
sions of the savages, to settle in a frontier place, per- 
petually opposed to their depredations, where personal 
safety, so indispensable to other enjoyments, was for 
many years a stranger to their habitations, and his re- 
turn to the work of the ministry, subject to the same 
dangers, after the complicated afflictions of his captiv- 
ity, evince his ardent love for the people of his care, 
and testify that he was animated with the spirit of a 
martyr in the advancement of the Gospel. It is im- 
possible to peruse his interesting narrative of the de- 
struction of Deerfield, and the slaughter and captivity 
of its inhabitants, in the suffering in which he so large- 
ly participated, without being inspired with a respect 
for his talents and piety, and an admiration of that un- 
exampled fortitude which could sustain him under pri- 
vate calamities such as rarely happen to man, and a 
view of public desolations, similar, though less extend- 
ed, to those apostrophized by the mournful son of Hil- 
kiah. But a holy resignation to the Supreme Disposer 
of events was the balm of every sorrow. His path 
was lighted by a hope that looks beyond this transient 
scene. He was redeemed from the flames, passed 
through the wilderness and sea of dangers, and, as we 
trust, reached a temple eternal in the heavens." 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



List of the Soldiers and the Descendants of such as are de- 
ceased that were in the Fight, called the Fall Fight, above 
Deerfield, who are entitled to the Township granted by the 
General Court, as follows: — 

Joseph Atherton, Deerfield, only son of Hope Atherton. 
Nathaniel Allexander, Northampton, Nathaniel Allexander. 
Thomas Alvard, Middleton, eldest son of Thomas Alvard. 
John Arms, Deerfield, son of William Arms. 
John Baker, Northampton, son of Timothy Baker. 
Samuel Bedortha, Springfield, son of Samuel Bedortha. 
John Field, Deerfield, descendant, James Bennet. 
John Barbar, Springfield, son of John Barbar. 
John Bradshaw, Medford, John Bradshaw. 
Isaac Burnap, Windham, son of John Burnap. 
Samuel Clesson, Northampton, descendant, Peter Bushrod. 
Samuel Boltwood, Hadley, son of Samuel Boltwood. 
Samuel Bardwell, Deerfield, son of Robert Bardwell. 
John Hitchcock, Springfield, descendant, Samuel Ball. 
Stephen Belden, Hatfield, son of Stephen Belden. 
Richard Beers, Watertown, son of Elnathan Beers. 
Samuel Beldin, Hatfield, Samuel Beldin. 
Preserved Clapp, Northampton, son of Preserved Clapp. 
Thomas Chapin, Springfield, son of Japhet Chapin. 
Samuel Crow, Hadley, son of Samuel Crow. 
Joseph Crowfoot, Wethersfield, descendant, Joseph Crowfoot. 
9 



138 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



William Clark, Lebanon, son of William Clark. 

Noah Cook, Hadley, descendant, Noah Colman. 

Benjamin Chamberlain, Colchester, Benjamin Chamberlain. 

Nathaniel Chamberlain, descendant, Joseph Chamberlain. 

Samuel Cuniball, Boston, son of John Cuniball. 

John Chase, Newbury, son of John Chase. 

William Dickeson, Hadley, son of Nehemiah Dickeson. 

Samuel Jellet, Hatfield, descendant, John Dickeson. 

Benjamin Edwards, Northampton, son of Benjamin Edwards. 

Joseph Fuller, Newtown, Joseph Fuller. 

Samuel Field, Deerfield, son of Samuel Field. 

Nathaniel Foot, Colchester, son of Nathaniel Foot. 

John Flanders, Kingston, son of John Flanders. 

Isaac Gleason, Enfield, son of Isaac Gleason. 

Richard Church, Hadley, descendant, Isaac Harrison. 

Simon Grover, Maiden, son of Simon Grover. 

Samuel Griffin, Roxbury, son of Joseph Griffin. 

John Hitchcock, Springfield, son of John Hitchcock. 

Luke Hitchcock, Springfield, son of Luke Hitchcock. 

Jonathan Hoit, Deerfield, son of David Hoit. 

Jonathan Scott, Waterbury, descendant, John Hawks. 

Eleazer Hawks, Deerfield, son of Eleazer Hawks. 

James Harw r ood, Concord, son of James Harwood. 

John Dond, Middleton, descendant, Experience Hindal. 

Samuel Hunt, Tewksbury, Samuel Hunt. 

William James, Lebanon, son of A bell James. 

John Ingram, Hadley, son of John Ingram. 

Samuel Jellet, Hatfield, son of Samuel Jellet. 

William Jones, Almsbury, son of Robert Jones. 

Medad King, Northampton, son of John King. 

Francis Keet, Northampton, son of Francis Keet. 

Martin Kellog, Suffield, son of Joseph Kellog. 

John Lee, Westfield, son of John Lee. 

John Lyman, Northampton, son of John Lyman. 

Joseph Leeds, Dorchester, son of Joseph Leeds. 

Josiah Leonard, Springfield, son of Josiah Leonard. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



139 



John Merry, Long Island, son of Cornelius Merry. 

Stephen Noble, formerly of Enfield, descendant, Isaac Morgan. 

Jonathan Morgan, Springfield, son of Jonathan Morgan. 

Thomas Miller, Springfield, son of Thomas Miller. 

James Mun, Colchester, James Mun. 

Benjamin Mun, Deerfield, son of John Mun. 

John Mattoon, Wallingford, son of Philip Mattoon. 

John Nims, Deerfield, son of Godfrey Nims. 

Ebenezer Pumroy, Northampton, son of Medad Pumroy. 

Samuel Pumroy, N. H., son of Caleb Pumroy. 

Samuel Price, Glastenbury, son of Robert Price. 

Samuel Preston, Hadley, descendant, John Preston. 

Thomas Pratt, Maiden, son of John Pratt. 

John Pressey, Almsbury, son of John Pressey. 

Henry Rogers, Springfield, son of Henry Rogers. 

John Read, Westford, son of Thomas Read. 

Nathaniel Sikes, Springfield, son of Nathaniel Sikes. 

Nathaniel SutlifF, Durham, son of Nathaniel Sutliff. 

Samuel Stebbins, Springfield, son of Samuel Stebbins. 

Luke Noble, Westfield, descendant, Thomas Stebbins. 

Ebenezer Smead, Deerfield, son of William Smead. 

Joseph Smith, Hatfield, son of John Smith. 

James Stephenson, Springfield, son of James Stephenson. 

Thomas Seldon, Haddam, son of Joseph Seldon. 

Josiah Scott, Hatfield, son of William Scott. 

John Salter, Charlestown, son of John Salter. 

William Turner, Swanzey, grandson of Captain Turner. 

Benjamin Thomas, Strafford, son of Benjamin Thomas. 

Joseph Winchell, jr., Suffield, descendant, Jonathan Tailer. 

Samuel Tyley, Boston, son of Samuel Tyley. 

Preserved Wright, N. H., son of James Wright. 

Cornelius Webb, Springfield, son of John Webb. 

Jonathan Webb, Stamford, son of Richard Webb. 

John Wait, Hatfield, son of Benjamin Wait. 

Eleazer Weller, Westfield, son of Eleazer Weller. 

Thomas Wells, Deerfield, son of Thomas Wells. 



140 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



Ebenezer Warriner, Enfield, son of Joseph Warriner. 

Jonathan Wells, Deerfield, Jonathan Wells. 

Wm. Worthington, Colchester, son Nicholas Worthington. 

John Scott, Elbows, grandson of John Scott. 

Samuel Colby, Almsbury. 

Irgal Newberry, Maiden. 

The Committee appointed to enlist the Officers 
and Soldiers in the Fight, called the Fall Fight, 
under the Command of Capt. William Turner, 
then slain, and the Descendants of such as are 
deceased, and that are entitled to the Grant of 
this Great and General Court made them of a 
Township, have attended many times that Ser- 
A List of ye vice and returned the List above and aforesaid, 
Proprietary, -which contains the Person's Names claiming, 
and from whom and which the Committee have 
accordingly allowed, all which is submitted. 

WM. DUDLEY, 
EZ. LEWIS, 
JOHN STODDARD, 
JOSEPH DWIGHT, 
JOHN WAIN WRIGHT. 

Boston, June, 1736. 

In Council, June 23d, 1736, Read, and ordered that this 
Report be accepted. Sent down for Concurrence : 

SIMON FROST, DepVy Sec'ry. 

In the House of Representatives, Jan'y 19, 1736, Read, 
and ordered that this Report be accepted. Sent up for Con- 
currence. J. QUINCY, SpVr. 

In Council, Jan'y 21st, 1736, Read and Concurr'd. 

SIMON FROST, DepVy Sec'ry. 
Consented to, J. BELCHER. 

A true Copy, Examin'd pr. SIMON FROST, Dept. SecWy. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



141 



Names of the Captives who were taken at the Destruction of 
the Town of Deerfield, February 29th, 1703-4. Drawn up 
by the Rev. Stephen Williams, of Springfield, soon after his 
Return from Captivity. 



Mary Alexander. 

Mary Alexander, jr. 

Joseph Alexander, (ran away 

the first night.) 
Sarah Allen. 
Mary Allis. 
Thomas Baker. 
Simon Beaumont. 
Hepzibah Belding.* 
John Bridgman, (ran away 

in the meadow.) 
Nathaniel Brooks. 
Mary Brooks.* 
Mary Brooks, jr. 
William Brooks. 
Abigail Brown. 
Benjamin Burt. 
Hannah Carter.* 
Hannah Carter, jr.* 
Mercy Carter. 
Samuel Carter. 
John Carter. 
Ebenezer Carter. 
Marah Carter.* 
John Catlin. 
Ruth Catlin. 
Elizabeth Corse.* 



Elizabeth Corse, jr. 

Daniel Crowfoot. 

Abigail Denio. 

Sarah Dickinson. 

Joseph Eastman. 

Mary Field. 

John Field. 

Mary Field, jr. 

Mary Frary.* 

Thomas French. 

Mary French.* 

Mary French, jr. 

Thomas French, jr. 

Freedom French. 

Martha French. 

Abigail French. 

Mary Harris. 

Samuel Hastings. 

Elizabeth Hawks. 

Mehuman Hinsdale. 

Mary Hinsdale. 

Jacob Hicks, (died at Coos.) 

Deacon David Hoit, (died at 

Coos.) 
Abigail Hoit. 
Jonathan Hoit. 
Sarah Hoit. 



* This mark designates those who were slain in the meadows 
after they left the town. 



142 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



Ebenezer Hoit. 


Samuel Price. 


Abigail Hoit, jr. 


Jemima Richards. 


Elizabeth Hull. 


Josiah Rising. 


Thomas Hurst. 


Hannah Shelden. 


Ebenezer Hurst. 


Ebenezer Shelden. 


Benoni Hurst.* 


Remembrance Shelden. 


Sarah Hurst. 


Mary Shelden. 


Sarah Hurst, jr. 


John Stebbins. 


Elizabeth Hurst. 


Dorothy Stebbins. 


Hannah Hurst. 


John Stebbins, jr. 


Martin Kellogg. 


Samuel Stebbins. 


Martin Kellogg, jr. 


Ebenezer Stebbins. 


Joseph Kellogg. 


Joseph Stebbins. 


Joanna Kellogg. 


Thankful Stebbins. 


Rebecca Kellogg. 


Elizabeth Stevens. 


John Marsh. 


Ebenezer Warner, 


Sarah Mattoon.* 


Waitstill Warner, jr.* 


Philip Mattoon. 


Sarah Warner. 


Frank,* (a negro.) 


Rev. John Williams. 


Mehitable Nims. 


Mrs. Eunice Williams.* 


Ebenezer Nims. 


Samuel Williams. 


Abigail Nims. 


Stephen Williams. 


Joseph Petty. 


Eunice Williams, jr. 


Sarah Petty. 


Esther Williams. 


Lydia Pomeroy. 


Warham Williams. 


Joshua Pomeroy. 


John Weston. 


Esther Pomeroy.* 


Judah Wright. 



Also three Frenchmen who had lived in De'erfield some 
time, and who came from Canada. 



Names of those who we're slain at the Taking of the Town. 

David Alexander. Sarah Field. 

Thomas Carter. Samson Frary. 

John Catlin. John French. 

Jonathan Catlin. Alice Hawks. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



143 



John Hawks, jr., and his wife. 
Thankful Hawks. 
John Hawks. 
Martha Hawks. 
Samuel Hinsdale. 
Joseph Ingersol. 
Jonathan Kellogg-. 
Philip Mattoon's wife and 

child. 
Parthena, (a negro.) 
Henry Nims.* 
Mary Nims.* 
Mehitable Nims.* 

Slain in 

Samuel Allis. 
Serg. Boltwood. 
Robert Boltwood. 
Joseph Catlin. 
Samuel Foot. 



Sarah Price. 
Mary Root. 
Thomas Shelden. 
Mercy Shelden. 
Samuel Smead's wife and 

two children. 
Elizabeth Smead. 
Martin Smith. 
Serg. Benoni Stebbins. 
Andrew Stevens. 
Mary Wells. 
John Williams, jr. 
Jerusha Williams. 

the Meadow. 

David Hoit, jr. 
Jonathan Ingram. 
Serg. Benjamin Wait. 
Nathaniel Warner. 



* These three were supposed to have been burned to death in 
a cellar. 



144 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



JOURNAL OF REV. STEPHEN WILLIAMS. 

Through the politeness of Mrs. Jerusha M. Colton, for- 
merly Miss Williams, of Longmeadow, a descendant of the 
Rev. John Williams, and granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. 
Stephen Williams, late of Springfield, I am indebted for the 
following Journal of her grandfather, kept during his captiv- 
ity, and for other interesting matter relating to the early In- 
dian war in this town and vicinity, written by him. It will 
be recollected that the Rev. Doctor Stephen Williams was 
a son of Mr. John Williams, and w r as taken prisoner with 
him at the last destruction of the town, at the age of eleven 
years. The following is his Journal, from his own hand- 
writing : — 

What befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity. 

On the last of February, 1703-4, the French and Indians 
came and surprised our fort and took it, and after they had 
broken into our house and took us prisoners, they barbarous- 
ly murdered a brother and sister of mine, as they did several 
of our neighbors. They rifled our house and then marched 
away with us that were captives, and set our house and barn 
on fire, as they did the greatest part of the town. When the 
greatest part of the enemy were gone out of the town, there 
came some English from the next town that drove those 
Indians that remained in the town away, but they were quick- 
ly driven back again by the rest of the army. Nine of them 
were slain as they retreated. Then they marched a little 
further and stopped, for they had several wounded men that 
hindered them. There they told us that, if the English pur- 
sued, they would kill us, otherwise they would not ; but they 
quickly proved themselves liars, for before they departed from 
the place they barbarously murdered a child of about two 




Zith.of£. C. Kellogp, Ilajtford, G>nn,. 



STEPMEW WIttHISJol, 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



145 



years old. There my master took away my English shoes, 
and gave me Indian ones in the room of them, which I think 
were better to travel in. Then we marched five or six miles 
farther, where we took up our lodgings. Then one English- 
man ran back to Deerfield, which provoked them much. 
They told us, that if any more ran away, they would burn 
the rest. There they slew our negro man. The next morn- 
ing we travelled about two or three miles, when they mur- 
dered my ever honored mother, who having gone over a small 
river, which water running very swift flung her down, she, 
being wet, was not able to travel any farther. We travelled 
eight or nine miles farther and lodged that night. There 
some were disturbed, for some had five or six captives, and 
others none. They then called the captives together to make 
a more equal distribution, but I remained with my former 
master. Here they searched me and took away my silver 
buttons and buckles which I had on my shirt. Before we 
came to a small river, named West River, about thirty miles 
above Deerfield, they murdered three or four persons ; 
where they had sleighs and dogs with which they drew their 
wounded men. They travelled (we thought) as if they de- 
signed to kill us all, for they travelled thirty-five or forty 
miles a day. 

Here they killed near a dozen women and children, for 
their manner was, if any loitered, to kill them. My feet 
were very sore, so that I was afraid they would kill me also. 
We rested on the Sabbath day ; they gave my father liberty 
to preach. Here we sang a psalm, for they requested of 
us a song. The next day we travelled a great way farther 
than we had at any time before. About the middle of the 
day, some that were in the rear fired at some geese that flew 
over, which put them into considerable fright, for they 
thought that the English were come up with them. Then 
they began to bind the prisoners, and to prepare themselves 
for battle, but when they understood what was the matter, 
they shot a volley for joy, boasting that the English could 
not overtake them. 



146 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



I coming to my honored father, he told me he was taken 
lame in his ankle, which he sprained in the fall of the year. 
He said, likewise, he thought he should be killed, and if I 
should live to get to Canada, to tell them who I was, &c. ; 
which then did terrify me much ; but it pleased the Lord to 
strengthen him to perform his journey. 

The next day was tempestuous, and I froze one of my 
feet ; the day after, which was Wednesday, my master bid 
me go down to the river with him very early in the morning, 
which startled me, for he did not use to be so early. There 
that river parted, and I went up one branch, and my father, 
with my brother and sisters another. I never saw my father 
for fourteen months. I did not eat any thing in the morning, 
yet must travel all day, yea, I travelled till about nine o'clock 
at night without one morsel of victuals. I travelled about 
fifty miles that day and night. For my supper I had one 
spoonful of Indian corn, in the morning five or six kernels, 
but must travel. Then we left the river and travelled about 
noon on the west side of the river. We came to two wig- 
wams, where we found the signs of Indians, but no Indians. 
(In those wigwams they left their sacks and went a hunting, 
if perhaps they might find some moose buried in the snow 
by the hunting Indians, but could not find any.) 

I wandered about and lost myself, and hollowed. My 
master came to me, and was very angry. He lifted up the 
breach of his gun in order to kill me, but God kept back his 
hand, for which I desire his name might be praised. The 
Indians will never allow any body to riollow in the woods. 
Their manner is to make a noise like wolves, or other wild 
creatures, when they would call to one another. My master 
sent the Indian lad and I to those wigwams, but he himself 
took his gun and went a hunting (now there were only we 
three in company, we had left all that army). We made a 
fire, but had no victuals to dress, only a moose's paunch and 
bones, which the Indians had left. There we tarried that 
night, and the next day till about noon ; then there came an 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



147 



Indian girl and brought us some moose's meat dried, which 
I thought was the best victuals ever I ate. We travelled 
with the Indian girl about ten miles, where were two wig- 
wams. My master that left us the day before was there. 
While we tarried here, the French that were in the army 
passed by. Within a day or two we travelled seven or eight 
miles northward, to a place where they had killed some 
moose, where they made wigwams (for their manner was 
when they killed any moose to move to them and lie by 
them till they had eaten them up). Now there were two 
Englishmen of our town in company with me, who came 
from the army, to wit, Deacon Hoit, and one Jacob Hix, a 
soldier (now my master was not yet come to his own family). 
From hence he went to look for his family, and within a day 
or two sent for me. I thought this was hard to go away 
alone. Here I left Deacon Hoit and Jacob Hix. Deacon 
Hoit I never saw more, for he was dead before I came from 
hunting. I went with the messenger, and after a tedious 
day's travel came to my master's family. He gave me to his 
brother, with whom I continued two or three months there- 
abouts, hunting moose, bears, and beavers. But when I first 
arrived here they were extraordinary kind, took care of my 
toe which was frozen, would not suffer me to do any work, 
gave me deer-skin to lie on, and a bear-skin to cover me 
withal ; but this did not last long, for I was forced to carry 
such a pack when I travelled that I could not rise up without 
some help, was forced to cut wood, and carry it sometimes a 
considerable way on my back. After that manner I lived till 
their hunting time was over, without any society but the in- 
human pagans. 

We travelled with the design to go to Cowass, where was 
their rendezvous ; but before we had got quite there, we met 
some Indians that stopped us. They told us that all the In- 
dians were coming away from Cowass, which within a day 
or two came to be true. Now the reason of their deserting 
that place was this : there came an Englishman with six of 



148 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



our Indians, and destroyed a family of Indians about twenty 
miles from Cowass. Here we staid where these Indians met 
us, a month or six weeks. Suffered much for want of provis- 
ions. The chief of our provision was roots of several sorts 
and bark of trees. Here I met the above-said Jacob Hix. 
Deacon Hoit was already dead for want of provision. This 
Hix looked like a ghost, was nothing but skin and bone, 
could scarce go, had no victuals but what he got himself (for 
he had been at Cowass with the Indians planting corn, when 
he suffered much for want of provision). I was better off 
than they ; while I was hunting, we had meat enough, but 
neither bread nor salt to eat with it. 

There was in company now one Mr. Bradley of Haver- 
hill, and one Hannah Eastman, one Daniel Avery of Haver- 
hill, and one Mrs. Jones, and Margaret Hugins, her maid, 
&c, who were taken at Northampton Farms. 

Now from hence we set away for Canada. My master had 
so much lumber to carry, that we were forced to carry a pack 
a mile or two, and go back and fetch another, which was very 
tedious. Jacob Hix died at the first carrying-place of the 
French River (now Onion River). This was an exceedingly 
tedious march to me. When we came to the French River, it 
was as much as our canoe would carry our lumber, the water 
was so shallow ; so that I was forced to travel afoot, on the 
bank, which cut out my shoes. My feet were much galled, and 
one or two of my toes almost cut off with the stones. I had 
little or nothing to eat. My master killed a duck one day in 
the river, and for my part I had the entrails, which I laid on 
the coals, and they seemed a sweet morsel to me. They ate 
skins, &c, but when we arrived at the lake, we were supplied 
with fish and fowl. The Indian boys kill the geese with 
their bows and arrows, they are so bold, and fish are easily 
taken with hooks. One day, as we sailed on the lake, two 
young Indians shot a fish with a bullet and took it into the 
canoe. It was as large as I am. I arrived at Shamblee in 
August, which was about half a year from the time I was 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



149 



taken. The French were kind to me, gave me bread, which 
I had not eaten in a great while. They told me my father 
and brothers and sisters were got to Canada, which I was glad 
to hear of, for I was afraid my youngest brother was killed. 

While I tarried here, a Frenchman came and desired the 
Indians to let me go with him, which they did. He gave me 
some victuals, and made me lie down in his couch, which my 
master's son perceiving, told his father, who thought he did 
it to hide me, and did design to steal me ; upon which he 
came up and fetched me away, and would not let me go to 
the fort any more, for which I suffered. While here the 
French dressed my feet that were wounded, at which the In- 
dians seemed to be vexed. 

From hence we went towards Sore], but tarried a day or two 
near a Frenchman's house, about three miles from Shamblee, 
who was kind to me, and would have lodged me in his house, 
but the Indians would not allow of it, mistrusting he would 
convey me away in the night privately. From hence we 
went to Sorel, and as soon as we had landed, there came a 
woman across the river on purpose to bring me some victuals, 
and seemed to pity me. 

Here we tarried a day or two. My master bid me go to 
the fort a visiting, which was about fourscore Tods off. I 
went, and at a Frenchman's persuasion tarried all night, and 
till next day about noon, when my master came for me; he 
was very angry with me, and after that would never suffer 
me to go to a French house alone. From this place we 
went to St. Francis, the Indian fort. My master could not 
comply with their rites and customs, whereupon he went to 
Albany and gave me to his kinsman, Sagamore George. 
But while I remained there, Monsieur Shamblee heard that I 
was with Sagamore George, and came to buy me. I seemed 
to be willing to go with him, at which the Indians were much 
disturbed, and would not let me go, because I showed a for- 
wardness to go, and did likewise threaten to kill me, did com- 
plain to the Jesuit, who came and said to me, " What, no 
love Indian ! they have saved your life," &c. 



150 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



It is no wonder that the children will not speak to their 
friends when they come to see them, but they will scoff at 
and deride them, because the Indians have so taught them, 
and will be angry if they do otherwise. 

While I lived here, I observed that some English children 
would scoff at me, and when before the Indians, worse than 
the Indian children, but when alone they would talk famil- 
iarly with me in English, about their own country, &c, 
whereas when before the Indians they would pretend that 
they could not speak English. Here the Indians did say 
something to me about religion, but not much ; being Eastern 
Indians, were not zealous as the Macquas are. 

The French Governor, after he heard I was in the country, 
because of my father's entreaties, was often sending to the 
Indians to buy me, who were quite wearied out because of 
the many messages he sent. The Governor was not willing 
to give above thirty crowns, whereas they stood for forty. At 
length, being wearied out, my master went to the Jesuit, and 
got pen, ink, and paper, would have me write to my father, 
for we had heard he was learned, and had two hundred 
pounds a year allowed him, which I believe some of them be- 
lieved. After he had got paper he takes another Indian with 
him that could speak good English, who was to indite for me. 
The substance of the letter was this, that if they did not buy 
me before spring, they would not sell me afterwards, and that 
he must give forty crowns for me. They carried it to the Jes- 
uit, who could speak English, to see whether I had written as 
they ordered me, and when they found I had, they were well 
pleased. 

My master had a mind to go hunting, and would have taken 
me with him; but because he sent such word, that they 
must buy by such a time, he left me at home, that I might 
be ready if they should send to buy me, and when Captain 
Livingston and Mr. Sheldon were come to Canada, my mis- 
tress thought there would be an exchange of prisoners, and 
lest the French should then take me away for nothing, she 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



151 



removed up into the woods, about half a mile from the river, 
that if they came they might not find me. While on a cer- 
tain day my mistress went to a French house to get victuals, 
and ordered me to spend my day in getting wood ; but it 
proved a tempestuous day, and we had half a cart-load at the 
door, which is a great deal for Indians to have, so that I did 
not get any. When she came home, being disturbed by the 
French, asked what I had been doing ; they replied, nothing, 
at which she was very angry. I will not beat you myself, 
says she, for my husband ordered me to the contrary, but will 
tell the Jesuit, the next time he comes. Within a day or 
two the Jesuit came. She was as good as her word, and did 
complain. He took me out and whipt me with a whip with 
six cords, several knots in each cord. 

After a few days he came again, with a letter from my 
father, by which I understood he was a prisoner. I told 
the Indians, who said they believed it. He likewise said in 
his letter that the Governor of New England would take care 
we should be redeemed. 

Whilst I lived here, I made about fourscore weight of 
sugar with the sap of maple trees, for the Indians. My mis- 
tress had a mind to go to Sorel, and because there was a 
barrel of sap to boil she sent me to the sugar place over 
night to boil it, so that we might go in the morning. I went 
and kept a good fire under the kettle, little thinking of its 
coming to sugar, and it was spoiled for want of stirring, for 
the manner is to stir it when it comes almost to sugar. They 
were very angry, and would not give me any victuals. 

It being now spring, we went in canoes to Sorel ; and so 
soon as we had got there, the woman that brought me victuals 
across the river when I was there before, came and desired of 
the Indians to let me go to the fort, which they consented to. 
I went ; but remembering the bad effect of tarrying all night 
before, durst not do so again without the Indians' leave. I 
went to the Indians and carried them some victuals, and asked 
them to let me lie at the fort, which they granted. I kept 
here about a fortnight, and lay at the fort every night 



152 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



When we came to St. Francis we went to master's land, 
where I made preparation to plant corn ; but before we began, 
the Governor came and bought me, after a long parley, for 
forty crowns. With him I went to Sorel, where I met with 
Captain Livingston and several captives. Captain Livingston 
told me I should go home to New England with him, which 
revived me much ; — but the Governor quickly altered his 
mind, and said I must not go from hence. 

I went down to Quebec with the Lord Intendant. When 
I arrived I found several English people that were prisoners. 
Here one Mr. Hill took care of me, and cut my hair for me 
(now my hair was like an Indian's, one side long and the 
other short). He got me a shirt, and a pair of breeches, and 
a jacket and stockings. 

From hence, on the 11th of May, T was sent to live with 
my father at Chateauviche. While here, the French were 
very courteous and kind to me, as they were to my father. 
This seemed almost home to me, because my father I had not 
seen for fourteen months. When Mr. Dudley came to Can- 
ada, my father and I were sent to Quebec. When we were 
at Quebec, Captain Courtamouch took us to his house and 
entertained us very nobly. He said he had received kindness 
at New England. While we were at Quebec, the Seminary, 
a famous building, was burnt. And upon Mr. Dudley and 
Captain Vetch petitioning, the Governor gave me liberty to 
come home ; and accordingly I came home on the 12th of 
October, 1705, but I left my honored father and brothers 
and sisters behind ; and, after a tedious voyage, I arrived 
safe at Boston, in New England, on the 21st of November, 
1705. And I desire that the name of God may be praised 
and adored for his wonderful goodness to me in sparing my 
life when I was as it were on the brink of eternity, and that 
he stayed the hands of those that took up their weapons to 

y me with them. 

N. B. That while with the Indians I was in great danger 
of being drowned several times. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



153 



Extract from Rev. Dr. Stephen Williams's Journal. 

September 16, 1696. John Smead and John Gillet, being in 
the woods hunting bees, were beset by a company of French 
Mohawks. Gillet was taken prisoner, and Smead escaped. 
The Indians fearing a discovery by Smead, sixteen of them 
hastened away towards the town, and three were left with 
Gillet, It being lecture-day, the people were got out of the 
meadows that they might attend the lecture, so that the enemy 
came as far as Mr. Daniel Belding's house,* within gunshot 
of the fort. Mr. Belding, being belated about his work, had 
but just got home from the field, and left his cart that was 
loaded with corn, and went into the house ; and the Indians 
rushed upon them, and took him prisoner and his son Nathan- 
iel, aged twenty-two years, and daughter Esther, aged thir- 
teen years, and killed his wife and his son Daniel, and John, 
and his daughter Thankful. They took his son Samuel from 
the cart, but he kicked and scratched and bit so, that the In- 
dian set him down and struck the edge of his hatchet into the 
pate of his head, and then pulled out his hatchet and left him 
for dead. His brains followed the hatchet; but he revived, 
and got to the fort, where there was care taken of him, and, 
notwithstanding the wound that he had, it pleased God and 
his life was spared ; his wound healed, and he is yet living. 
He was once or twice accounted to be dead, and once ac- 
counted as dead a day or two after his being wounded. Abi- 
gail Belding, another daughter, was shot in the arm as she 
was running to the fort, but it was generally thought the bul- 
let that struck her came from the fort. Sarah Belding, an- 
other of the daughters, hid herself amongst some tobacco in 
the chamber, and so escaped. The people in the fort, being 
then at the public worship, were alarmed, shot from the fort, 
and wounded one of the enemy in the fleshy part of the thigh. 



* On the ground where Mr. Ralph Williams now lives. 
10 



154 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



The Indians fired at the fort, and wounded one Mr. Williams 
as he went out of the gate. 

The enemy presently withdrew, (they were not one quar- 
ter of an hour in doing the exploit,) and were followed by 
some brisk young men into the meadow, who came within 
thirty rods and fired at them, and the Indians at them again, 
without damage on either side. The Indians killed some cat- 
tle that were feeding in the meadows. A boy that had the 
care of the cattle hid himself in the weeds, and escaped. 
The enemy went up the Green River and came to the com- 
panions they had left with Gillet. John Smead came into 
the house soon after Mr. Belding's family were well off. 
The first night the enemy lodged in a round hole near the 
liver above the rock in New Hampshire, and from thence pur- 
sued their way to Canada by the way of Otter Creek, leaving 
Connecticut River, &c. When they came near Otter Creek, 
they came upon some tracks of Albany Indians that were go- 
ing to Canada ; — for in those times the Indians from Albany 
were wont to go a scalping, as they call it, to Canada. 
They sent out their scouts and were upon the look-out, and 
at length discovered their smoke. And then they flung down 
their packs and painted themselves, and tied their English 
captives to trees and left two men to guard them, and pro- 
ceeded on their business. Having divided themselves into 
two companies, they fell upon the savage company, which 
consisted of six men, and killed two of them, wounded two, 
and two escaped. Among the slain was one Uroew, an In- 
dian known among the English, and supposed to be a bloody 
fellow. Of their own men, one was wounded near the fleshy 
part of the thigh, as one had before been at Deerfield. The 
prisoners were one a Schaghticook Indian, and the other a 
young Albany Mohawk. When the skirmish was over, the 
English were brought up, and so they proceeded on their 
journey. Mr. Belding asked the Schaghticook Indian (now 
his fellow-prisoner) what the enemy would do with them, who 
replied, that they would not kill the English prisoners, but 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



155 



give some of them to the French, and keep some of them 
themselves ; but he expected to be burnt himself ; but when 
they came to the lake, one rainy night, they made no fires, 
and some of them lodged under the canoes, from which this 
Schaghticook made his escape, having loosed himself by some 
means from his cords, &c. ; and although he was pursued, the 
enemy could not recover him. As for the young Albany 
Mohawk, he was kept alive, being one of their own nation. 
The French Mohawk went, on their return to Canada, to the 
sect of the Romish religion. When Mr. Belding and com- 
pany came to the fort called Oso, the males were obliged to 
run the gantlet. Mr. Belding, being a very nimble and 
light-footed man, received but few blows, save at first setting 
out, but the other two men were much abused by clubs, fire- 
brands, &c. 

They arrived at Canada; and now they found what the 
Schaghticook Indian said to be true, for the Indians kept 
Mr. Belding himself and his daughter with them, and gave 
John Gillet and Nathaniel Belding to the French. Gillet 
worked as a servant to the nuns at their farm, and Nathaniel 
Belding worked for the Holy Sisters. 

On the night of the 9th of July following, Mr. Belding was 
sold to the French, and lived as a servant with the Jesuits at 
the Seminary. His business was to wait upon them, and 
cut wood, make fires, &c, and tend the garden, and account- 
ed himself favorably dealt by, &c. In the winter following, 
Colonel Abraham Schuyler, with some others, came to Can- 
ada, and brought with them a copy of the articles of peace 
between England and France, and returned home with some 
Dutch captives. 

In April following, Colonel Peter Schuyler, and Colo- 
ne A. Schuyler, and the Dutch Domine, with some others, 
came to Canada, and the French Governor gave liberty to all 
captives, English and Dutch, to return home ; — yea, allowed 
them to obligate under sixteen years of age to return with 
them ; those above that age were to be at their liberty, &c. 



156 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



These Dutch gentlemen gathered up all the captives, both 
English and Dutch, that they could find, and returned June 
8 ; took Mr. Belding and his children, and Martin Smith, 
with about twenty more English, with them, and arrived at 
Albany in about fifteen days, where the Dutch people treated 
him with a great deal of kindness, and offered to send him 
home directly to Deerfield. Colonel Schuyler clothed him 
and his children, at the desire of his brother, Mr. John Bel- 
ding, of New York, who paid him for the clothes, &c. After 
about three weeks' stay at Albany, Mr. Belding and his chil- 
dren went down the river to New York, where his brother 
had provided a place for his entertainment. From York he 
went in a vessel to Stamford, and from thence returned to 
New York, and after some stay there, returned to Deerfield. 
John Gillet got home a little before him by the way of France, 
and so to England, having received great kindness in England. 



An Account of some Ancient Things. From the same. 

Capt. Wright, Lieut. Wells, Wright, Jabez Olra- 

stead, Job Strong, Jonathan Hoit, Tim. Childs, John Burt, 
and Tim. Pagan, and Joshp Ephn., at the lake went with- 
in four miles of Shamblee, killed one and wounded three, 
and at French River killed eight. Leaving B. and Lieut. 
Wells, and John S. wounded. They got one canoe with 
their prisoners. This was next day after the expedition at 
the lake ; slept at White River Eli Severance, Thomas Mc- 
Crary, Joseph Root, and Sergeant Wait. 

Deerfield, May 10, 1704.- John Allen and his wife, going 
out from the garrison about two miles upon some business, 
were ambushed by the Indians, who killed him outright, and 
took his wife, whom they killed about a mile or two from the 
place. 

About the middle of July, 1704, a friend Indian was killed 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



157 



at Hatfield Mill ; his name was Kindniss. The enemy had 
not time to scalp him. 

On the same week, Thomas Russel, a young man of Hat- 
field, being then a soldier of Deerfield, was sent out into the 
woods with men as a scout, but he, rambling from his com- 
pany, was killed by the Indians. 

Some time in May or June, 1705, Joseph Petty, John 
Nims, Thomas Baker, and Martin Kellogg, jr. made their 
escape from Montreal, and got home to Deerfield, &c. 

July 13, 1704. One Dr. Crossman, with two or three 
more men, were riding in the night between Hadley and 
Springfield, and were fired upon by the enemy, who wound- 
ed Dr. Crossman in the arm. This is the only time that I 
can learn that they ever fired upon any body in the night. 

July 31, 1706. Samuel Chapin and his brother went up 
to their farm, perceiving signs of Indians, at a place called 
Chicopee, in the north part of Springfield. They hastened 
toward the town, but the Indians followed them about a mile 
and a half, and then fired upon them, and shot Samuel Cha- 
pin through the side, but he recovered of his wound. The 
same company of Indians, as it is supposed, went to Brook- 
field, and killed the widow Taft as she was milking. 

July 9, 1708. Samuel and Joseph Parsons, of Northamp- 
ton, sons to Captain John Parsons, being in the woods look- 
ing after cattle, were slain by the Indians. 

July 26, 1708. About seven or eight Indians rushed into 
the house of Lieutenant Wright, at a place called Skipmuck, 
in Springfield, and killed and scalped, and they beat their 
heads to pieces, Aaron Parsons, and Barijah Hubbard, who 
were soldiers ; knocked down and scalped old Mr. Wright^ 
who yet lived about three months and then died ; two chil- 
dren of Henry Wright, that lay in the cradle, they knocked 
on the head ; one of them died that night, the other recov- 
ered, and is still living. They took Henry Wright's wife 
captive, whom it is supposed they afterwards killed and 
scalped. Lieutenant Wright got out of his shop window, 



158 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



and made his escape ; and a daughter of his ran out at a door 
which latched on the outside, and pulled the string after her, 
and so escaped. The house was not fortified, but had flank- 
ers at two corners, &c. 

October 30, 1708. Abijah Bartlet was killed at Brook- 
field, and Joseph Jennings and Benjamin Jennings and John 
Green were wounded ; a boy of John Woolcot's was taken. 

October 26, 1708. Ebenezer Field, of Hatfield, going to 
Deerfield, was killed near Muddy, or, as some call it, Bloody 
Brook, for there it was that Captain Lathrop and his com- 
pany were cut off in Philip's war. 

August, 1708. A scout of six men, about an hundred 
miles above Deerfield, were fell upon by a party of Indians, 
and one Robert Windsor was slain ; but after he had received 
his mortal wound, he got upon his knees and shot the very 
Indian that shot him, and fell down and died. So that when 
the Indians came to them, which was within a few minutes, 
they were both dead, lying within a few rods one of another. 
This account I had of an Indian, who, upon relating the 
matter, added, " No, he is not Barber, but his ghost." At 
the same time Martin Kellog was taken, which was the 
second time of his going into captivity, but before he was 
taken, discharged his gun and wounded an Indian in his 
thigh. 

April 11, 1709. Mr. Mehuman Hinsdale was driving his 
team from Northampton, without any fear of Indians (the 
leaves not being put forth) ; was met by two Indians about 
half a mile from the Pine Bridge in Hatfield North Meadow, 
who took him prisoner, and carried him away into the West 
Woods. The Indians were civil and courteous to him on 
their journey. They arrived at Shamblee within about eleven 
days and a half. After they took Mr. Hinsdale from Sham- 
blee, they carried him to Oso, the fort, where he was obliged 
to run the gantlet, as they call it, for near three quarters of a 
mile, but he ran so swiftly as not to receive a blow till he 
came near the fort, when he was met by an Indian, who, 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



159 



taking hold of the line that was round his neck, and hung 
upon his hack, pulled him down, and so he was struck by one 
fellow. After he was got into the fort, he was set in the 
midst of the company, and obliged to sing and dance, and 
while thus employed, he was struck a very severe blow upon 
his naked back by a youth of such an age as to think of en- 
gaging in some warlike expedition ; but this, b%ing contrary 
to their usual custom, (he having performed the ceremony of 
running the gantlet,) was resented, not only by Mr. Hinsdale, 
the sufferer, but by the Indians in general. From this fort 
Mr. Hinsdale was carried to the French Governor, who knew 
him (for this was the second time of Mr. Hinsdale's captiv- 
ity), and told him he expected a full account of what news, 
especially about an expedition which he suspected was on 
foot. The Governor told him if he would give him a full 
account of what there was in his country, he would treat him 
with respect; but if he found he did not, he would use him 
worse than a Devil, &c. But Mr. Hinsdale avoided what he 
could toward giving him an account ; but when Mr. Whitney 
of Billerica was brought into the country by the Indians, and 
gave an account of an expedition on foot, Mr. Hinsdale was 
taken and put into the dungeon, &c. 

After a while the Indians desired of the Governor that 
they might have Mr. Hinsdale to hum, pretending they 
would fight the better against the English if they could burn 
an Englishman, and he was delivered to the Indians, who 
were plotting to leave the French and go over to General 
Nicholson and the Dutch, and designed to make use of Mr. 
Hinsdale to have introduced them, &c. He was recaptivated 
from the French, and Mr. Hinsdale was led away towards 
Montreal from Quebec. The Indians communicated their 
design to Mr. Hinsdale, who was overjoyed with the account 
(for he thought of nothing but being sacrificed by them), and 
encouraged it ; but before they were ready to execute their 
design, a certain Indian fell sick, and in his sickness making 
confession to a priest, discovered the plot, and so all was 
dashed. 



160 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



The fellow that was the projector of it (being one that had 
come from Albany upon some of the Five Nations and to 
them) had timely notice to escape to Shamblee, where he 
put a trick upon the officer of the fort, pretending to him 
that he was sent by the Governor to make what discovery if 
the English supplied him with arms, ammunition, and pro- 
visions ; and he had been gone but a little while into the 
wood before his pursuers (the plot being wholly ripped up) 
came after him ; but he was gone, so as to escape his pursuers. 
Mr. Hinsdale was taken from the Indians, and again commit- 
ted to prison, and the next year Mr. Hinsdale and Mr. Joseph 
Clesson were sent to France in a man-of-war ; and in France 
he met with great kindness, particularly from the Lord In- 
tendant of Rochelle, and after a while they were shipped at 
St. Melores for London, where they met with great kindness, 
especially from Mr. Agent Dummer, who interceded with 
the Lords of the Admiralty, who ordered them on board one 
of the Queen's ships, which brought them to Rhode Island, 
from whence they got home in safety, after Mr. Hinsdale had 
been absent from his family about three years and a half. 

[About the 1st of June, 1836, I copied the inscription on 
the old tomb-stone of Mehuman Hinsdale, in our old burying- 
yard. It is on a beautiful light-blue slate-stone, one of the 
most durable kinds of stone for monuments, and, in my opin- 
ion, far superior to marble. The grave-stone of the second 
wife of the Rev. John Williams is of the same material, and 
one of the finest in this yard. 

" Here lies buried the body of Lievt. Mehuman Hinsdell, 
died May ye 9, 1736, in the 63d year of his age, who was 
the first male child born in this place, and was twice capti- 
vated by the Indian Salvages. 

"Math. 5th -7th — 'Blessed are the merciful, for they 
shall obtain mercy.' "] 

August, 1709. John Clary and Robert Granger were 
slain at Brookfield. 

July 22, 1710. John Grosvenor, Ebenezer Howard, John 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



161 



White, Benjamin and Stephen Jennings, and Joseph Kel- 
logg, were slain in the meadow at Brookfield. 

August 10, 1711. Samuel Strong of Northampton, with 
his son Samuel, going in the morning very early into the 
field, were ambuscaded by a party of Indians, who fired upon 
them and killed and scalped the young man, and wounded the 
old gentleman in the shoulder, and then took him captive and 
carried him to Canada ; but he has since returned home again. 

July 29, 1712. Benjamin Wright, a lad, son to Joseph 
Wright of Skipmuck, in Springfield, being in a meadow at 
Skipmuck, was taken by the Indians, and afterwards killed 
in the woods, as was supposed. 

July 30, 1712. A scout of men that was out above Deer- 
field, being very careless and noisy as they travelled, were 
fired upon by a party of Indians, who killed Samuel Andross, 
and took Jonathan Barrett and William Sanford captives. 

June 18, 1724. A small company of Indians fell upon 
some men in Hatfield, at a place called the Mill Swamp, 
about four miles from town, and killed Benjamin Smith, and 
took captive Joseph Allis and Aaron Wells. The men they 
killed within a day or two, &c. 

July 10, 1724. Timothy Childs and Samuel Allen were 
wounded by the Indians in Deerfield Meadow ; but they re- 
covered of their wounds, &c. 



162 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



THE BARRS FIGHT. 

In order to render the history of Indian battles, which are 
necessarily connected with the biography of Mr. Williams, 
complete, it is thought advisable to give some account of the 
Barrs Fight, so called, as this was the last incursion of the 
Indians against the town of Deerfield. 

In the year 1744, the war again commenced between 
France and Great Britain, and the Indians again became the 
allies of France. From 1725 to 1745 there were scarcely 
any Indian depredations in Deerfield or its vicinity. In 1745 
there were several skirmishes with the Indians in various 
parts of the country, but none within the borders of Deerfield, 
or in which her citizens were engaged. 

On the 25th of August, 1746, occurred the Barrs Fight, at 
the southwest part of Deerfield Meadows. The following 
relation was given me by Miss Eunice Allen, who on that 
day was tomahawked by an Indian, but survived the cruel 
wound. Miss Allen was above eighty years of age when she 
gave me the history. She had at this time been confined to 
her bed more than sixteen years, but her recollection was 
very clear and distinct. She remembered the events of that 
day as perfectly as if they had taken place yesterday. Her 
account agrees with that of the Rev. Mr. Taylor, published 
in 1793. 

Fort Massachusetts, at the western foot of Hoosac Moun- 
tain, about thirty miles west of Deerfield, was taken on the 
20th of August, 1746. After the capitulation, a party of In- 
dians, meditating an attack upon Deerfield, came down upon 
the borders of the meadows, and reconnoitred them. They first 
examined the North Meadow, and then the South. Finding 
a quantity of hay in the South Meadow, two miles south of 
the Street, and supposing that our people would be there at 
work the next day, they concealed themselves in the brush 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



163 



and underwood upon the borders of the adjoining hills. The 
next day, ten or twelve men and children, the men armed 
with guns, which they always carried with them, went into 
the field and commenced their labor. A Mr. Eleazer Hawks 
was out hunting partridges on the hills, where the Indians 
lay, that morning. He saw a partridge, and shot it. This 
alarmed the Indians, who supposed they were discovered. 
They immediately killed and scalped Mr. Hawks, and then 
proceeded to attack the workmen. They fought some time, 
which gave some of the children an opportunity to escape. 
Mr. Allen, father of Miss Allen, resolutely maintained his 
ground in defence of three children, who were at work with 
him in the field, until he killed one or two of the enemy. 
When he was overpowered, he fought them with the breech 
of his gun, but he was finally shot, and horribly mangled. 
The shirt which he wore on that day, torn with many balls 
and gashed with tomahawks, is still to be seen, as a curios- 
ity, either in the Museum in Deerfield Academy, or at the 
house of his grandson, at the Bans. In this engagement 
three men and a boy were killed, one boy was taken prisoner, 
and Miss Allen was wounded in the head, and left for dead, 
but not scalped. In endeavoring to make her escape, she 
was pursued by an Indian with an uplifted tomahawk and a 
gun. She was extremely active, and would have outrun him, 
had he not fired upon her. The ball missed her, but she 
supposed that it had struck her, and in her fright she fell. 
The Indian overtook her, and buried his tomahawk in her 
head, and left her for dead. The firing in the meadows 
alarmed the people in the Street, who ran to the scene of 
action, and the Indians made a hasty retreat, and were pur- 
sued for several miles by a body of men under the command 
of Captain Clesson. Miss Allen was passed by a number of 
people, who supposed her to be dead. At last an uncle came 
to her, discovered signs of life, and conveyed her home. Her 
wound was dressed by Dr. Thomas Williams, who took from 
it considerable quantities of brain. 



164 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



Samuel Allen, Jr., the boy who was taken in this engage- 
ment, was cirried to Canada, and remained with the Indians 
a year and nine months. He was finally redeemed by Colo- 
nel John Hawks, of this town, who was a celebrated partisan 
officer in Indian warfare, and a most useful and worthy man, 
whose biography should be transmitted to posterity. He 
was extremely loth to see Colonel Hawks, who was his uncle, 
and when he came into his presence he refused to speak the 
English language, pretending to have forgotten it ; and al- 
though he was dressed most shabbily, fared most miserably, 
and was covered with vermin, he was very much opposed 
to leaving the Indians. Threats and force were finally em- 
ployed to make him consent to quit them, and he asserted to 
the day of his death, that the Indian mode of life was the 
happiest. 

To give a complete view of all the Indian skirmishes which 
have ever occurred in the valley of the Connecticut, north of 
Springfield in Massachusetts, I shall subjoin' the date of all 
those I have not heretofore enumerated. In July, 1745, the 
Indians attacked Great Meadow, above Fort Dummer on the 
Connecticut, and captivated William Phips ; after marching 
half a mile, Phips killed one of his captors, and knocked down 
another, when he attempted to escape, but three of the enemy 
overtook and killed him. Josiah Fisher was killed and 
scalped about the same time, near Upper Ashuelot. 

On the 11th of October, the Indians again attacked the fort 
at Great Meadow, but unsuccessfully. Nehemiah How was 
taken and carried to Quebec, where he died. On their re- 
turn, they killed a man by the name of David Rugg. In 
April, 1746, the enemy took from No. 4 (Charlestown, New 
Hampshire), then the most northerly settlement on the Con- 
necticut, Captain John SpafTord, Isaac Parker, and Stephen 
Farnsworth, and carried them to Canada, and soon after r near 
Northfield, they killed Joshua Holton. On the 23d of this 
month a large party of Indians made an unsuccessful attempt 
upon the fort at the Upper Ashuelot. John Bullard and the 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



165 



wife of Daniel McKinne were killed, aud Nathan Blake was 
made prisoner. 

Early in May, No. 4 was again attacked. Seth Putnam 
was killed. They were driven off by the intrepidity of Colo- 
nel Willard, having lost two of their number. 

May 6th, an unsuccessful attack was made upon the fort 
at Fall-town (now Bernardstown). John Burke was wound- 
ed, though not severely. They burnt one house, and killed 
about ten cattle. The Indians lost two men. On that very 
day Sergeant John Hawks and John Miles were wounded by 
the Indians near Fort Massachusetts. Miles escaped to the 
fort. Hawks fought them for some time single-handed, and 
might have taken them both had he understood their language. 
They begged for quarter just before he turned to escape. 

On the 10th of the same month, Matthew Clark with his 
wife and daughter at Colerain, were fired upon by five In- 
dians who had been a short time before at Fall-town. Clark 
was killed outright, and his wife and daughter wounded. 
One of the Indians was killed by a soldier in the fort at Cole- 
rain, the rest retreated, and the wounded were brought in. 
Soon after, the enemy again attacked No. 4. Captain Stevens 
repulsed them with the loss of three men, viz. Aaron Lyon, 
Peter Perrin, and Joseph Marcy. Four of his men were 
wounded, and one taken captive. 

On the 11th of June the Indians attacked Fort Massachu- 
setts and were repulsed. They wounded Gershom Hawks 
and Elisha Nims, and captured Benjamin Tenter. The In- 
dians lost one man. 

No. 4 was again attacked on the 19th, and a gallant ac- 
tion maintained by CaptainsjjStevens and Brown. The enemy 
were again driven back. Jedediah Winchel was killed, and 
David Parker, Jonathan Stanhope, and Noah Heaton were 
wounded, but recovered. 

On the 20th, about twenty Indians attacked Bridgman's 
Fort, just below Fort Dummer. William Robbins and James 
Parker were killed ; John Beaumont and Daniel How were 



166 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



captivated ; Michael Gilson and Patrick Ray were wounded, 
but recovered. 

July 28th, the Indians took David Morrison, of Colerain, a 
prisoner. 

August 3d, No. 4 was again attacked, and Ebenezer Phil- 
lips was killed. After this they retreated, after having burnt 
several buildings and killed many cattle and horses. 

On the 11th, Benjamin Wright of Northfield was killed, 
while riding in the woods, by a shot from an Indian. Eze- 
kiel Wallingford of Paquaig (now Athol), was killed and 
scalped on the 17th ; and on the same day a man by the 
name of Bliss was killed and scalped near Colerain or Ber- 
nardston on the road from Deerfield. 

1747. Again No. 4 was unsuccessfully attacked. Two 
men by the names of Joseph Ely and John Brown were 
slightly wounded on the 7th of April. 

Asahel Burt and Nathaniel Dickinson of Northfield were 
killed and scalped on the 15th. As the enemy returned from 
Northfield, they burnt the principal part of the buildings in 
Winchester and Lower Ashuelot, the inhabitants having pre- 
viously deserted them. 

On the 15th of July, Mr. Eliakim Sheldon of Bernardston 
was killed by an Indian, and some time in the course of this 
month John Mills of Colerain was also killed. 

August 26th, the enemy appeared at Northampton, and 
killed and scalped Elijah Clark. John Smead was also killed 
and scalped, as he was travelling from Northfield to Sun- 
derland. 

A skirmish took place on the 24th of October, between 
twelve men who were passing down the river from No. 4, 
and a body of Indians. The enemy killed and scalped Na- 
thaniel Gould and Thomas Goodell. Oliver Avery was 
wounded, and John Henderson was captivated. The rest 
escaped. 

1748. March 15th, twenty Indians attacked about eight 
of our men who were out a few rods from No. 4. Charles 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



167 



Stevens was killed, one Androus was wounded, and Eleazer 
Priest was captivated. 

On the 9th of May, Noah Bixley of Southampton was 
killed and scalped. 

As Captain Melvin with eighteen men about this time 
was at the lake near Crown Point, he fired at two canoes 
containing Indians. When on his return, being on the West 
River, thirty or forty miles above Fort Dummer, he was at- 
tacked by surprise by the Indians, and his men were dis- 
persed. Some of them rallied and returned the fire of the. 
enemy, and killed one of them. Melvin lost six men. The 
rest returned at intervals. The names of the men who were 
killed were Joseph Petty, John Hey wood, John Dod, Daniel 
Mann, and Isaac Taylor. It is supposed Samuel Severance 
was captivated. 

As thirteen men were marching from Colonel Hinsdale's, 
on the 13th, to Fort Dummer, they were attacked by a large 
body of Indians. Joseph Richardson, Nathan French, and 
John Frost were killed instantaneously. Henry Stevens, 
Ben. Osgood, William Blanchard, Matthew Wiman, Joel 
Johnson, Moses Perkins, and William Bickford were capti- 
vated. Bickford probably died of his wounds. 

As Captain Hobbs from No. 4 was marching, on the 28th 
of June, through the woods with forty men, about twelve miles 
northwest of Fort Dummerj he was attacked by a large body 
of Indians, who pursued him. With much coolness, judg- 
ment, and deliberation, he arranged his men in order, and 
fought the enemy four hours with great bravery, and dis- 
persed them. Captain Hobbs lost three men, viz. Ebenezer 
Mitchel, Eli Scott, and Samuel Gunn. Three also were 
wounded. 

On the 14th of July, a scout of seventeen men, while pass- 
ing from Colonel Hinsdale's to Fort Dummer, were fired 
upon by 120 Indians. Two of the scout were killed at the 
onset, two were wounded, four escaped, and the rest were 
captivated. The Indians killed the wounded, after they had 



168 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



proceeded with them about a mile. On the 23d, the Indians 
killed a man in Northfield Street, by the name of Aaron 
Belding. 

On the 2d of August, two hundred of the enemy were hov- 
ering round Fort Massachusetts, which was then under the 
command of Captain, since Colonel, Ephraim Williams. The 
Indians fired upon a scout from the fort, and Captain Williams 
with thirty men went out to meet them, but their numbers 
were so great that he thought it best to return. In this ac- 
tion one Abbot was killed, and Lieutenant Hawley and Eze- 
kiel Wells wounded, but not dangerously. This was the 
last mischief done by the enemy till the year 1755, as peace 
occurred between France and England in 1748, and war did 
not again break out till 1756. Nevertheless, the Indians 
began their depredations again in 1755, in the summer of 
which year a n amber of them appeared at Stockbridge, and 
killed several men and cattle. In June they attacked a party 
of men who were at work in the meadow in the upper part of 
Charlemont. Several escaped, but Captain Rice and Phineas 
Arms were killed, and their bodies were horribly mangled. 
A boy by the name of Titus King was taken prisoner. In the 
same month the Indians attacked Bridgman's Fort at Hinsdale, 
and carried it. Fourteen persons were captivated. Caleb 
Howe was killed. The remainder escaped. About the same 
time the fort at Keene, under the command of Captain Sims, 
was attacked with great fury, by a large body of Indians. 
They were repulsed with fortitude. No lives were lost on 
the part of the English, but many cattle were killed, and 
houses burnt. One person who was out of the fort was 
taken. They soon after appeared at the same fort, and took 
a man by the name of Frizzle. 

In July a large body of the enemy again attacked Fort 
Hinsdale, and killed two men, one named Alexander, and 
took one prisoner. Nearly at the same time they killed two 
men at Bellows's Fort ; and somewhat farther up the river 
a man by the name of Pike was killed. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



169 



l 1756. June 17th. At Winchester this day Josiah Foster 
and his family were captivated, and on the same day at Fort 
Massachusetts the Indians killed Benjamin King and a man 
by the name of Meacham. In June also they killed Lieuten- 
ant Joseph Willard at No 4. 

On the 25th of the same month, a large body of Indians 
attacked a body of our men, who were returning from the 
army at the lake. Eight men were killed, and five taken 
prisoners. 

Captain Chapin, and two persons by the name of Chi- 
dester, were killed by the Indians on the 11th of July, at a 
place called West Hoosac. 

In the year 1757 the enemy made his appearance at No. 4, 
and took five persons prisoners. 

On the 20th of March, 1758, the enemy fired on and wound- 
ed John Morrison and John Henry of Colerain, near North 
River, a branch of Deerfield River. They burnt Captain 
Morrison's barn, and killed his cattle, the same day. On the 
21st, the Indians again made their appearance at Colerain, 
and took Joseph McCown and his wife prisoners. They 
killed Mrs. McCown the next day, she being unable to travel. 

After this period the people in this section of the country 
were not molested by the Indians. 



11 



170 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



EXTRACT FROM A SERMON, 

Preached at Mansfield, August 4, 1741, at a Time set apart 
for Prayer for the Revival of Religion, and on Behajf of 
Mrs. Eunice, the Daughter of the Rev. Mr. John Williams 
{formerly Pastor of Deerfield), who urns then on a Visit 
there, from Canada, where she has been long in Captivity: 
by Solomon Williams, A. M., Pastor of the First Church 
in Lebanon. 

" You may well think I have all along had some special 
eye to the uncommon occasion of prayer at this time, for that 
person here present with us, who has been for a long time in 
a miserable captivity, with a barbarous and heathen people, 
now for more than thirty-eight years ; yet among that people 
bred up in Popish superstition, blindness, and bigotry, who, 
by the providence of God, came last year, and now again 
with her husband and two of her children, on a visit to her 
friends in New England. Some of you know well, and I am 
sure I do, how long she has been the subject of prayer. 
What numberless prayers have been put up to God for her by 
many holy souls now in heaven, as well as many who yet 
remain on earth ! How many groans and fervent prayers 
can these ears witness to have uttered and breathed forth with 
a sort of burning and unquenchable ardor from the pious and 
holy soul of her dear father, now with God ! I know not that 
ever I heard him pray, after his own return from captivity, 
without a remembrance of her; that God would return her to 
His sanctuary, and the enjoyment of the Gospel light and 
grace in that purity and simplicity in which it shines in our 
land. But in this it seemed as if he never could be denied ; 
that God would not let her perish in Popish superstition and 
ignorance ; but, let her place be where it would, that he 
would, as he easily could, find some way for deliverance from 
those snares and thick-laid stratagems of the Devil to beguile 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



171 



and ruin poor souls, and make her a monument of his glori- 
ous and almighty grace. And this he was wont to do with 
such expressions of faith in God, and holy fervors of his soul, 
as seemed to breathe himself and her into the arms of the 
covenant of grace. God did not give him leave to see the 
performance of his wishes and desires for her, but took them 
to satisfy him in God himself, and make him perfectly know 
that not a tittle of the covenant should ever fail ; and left her 
in the same state, to try the faith and call forth the prayers of 
his people still. We now see some dawnings towards her 
deliverance, and living hopes of it; though all endeavors of 
men to persuade her here have been heretofore tried in vain. 
It has pleased God to incline her the last summer, and now 
again of her own accord, to make a visit to her friends ; and 
seems to encourage us to hope that He designs to answer the 
many prayers which have been put up for her, and, by the 
mighty power of his providence and grace, to give us one ex- 
traordinary conviction that he is a God hearing prayer." 



The following extract of a letter to me from Mrs. Jerusha 
M. Colton, on the same subject, dated Longmeadow, May 
26th, 1836, is highly interesting, and I have no doubt she 
will pardon me for the freedom I have taken in transcrib- 
ing it : — 

" I send you an old sermon, thinking the occasion of it 
might interest you, if you have never seen it. Here is an- 
other testimony of one personally acquainted with my great- 
grandfather, of his deep piety, and I think a remarkable ex- 
pression of it. 

" My aunt Eunice was indeed the object of great solicitude. 
I have heard my dear mother say of my grandfather, as it is 
here said of my father, that she never heard him pray with- 
out remembering her. She made her first visit here in 



172 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



1740. My uncle Eleazer, of Mansfield, Mr. Meacham, Es- 
ther's husband, and my grandfather, met their dear and long- 
lost sister in Albany. The affair was negotiated entirely 
by their friends the Schuylers. It was with difficulty she 
was prevailed upon to come to Albany, and she resolutely de- 
termined to come no farther, for fear she should be detained ; 
but they finally persuaded her and her husband to come to 
Longmeadow and there visit their other friends. Finding, 
although they were urged to stay, that they would not be 
compelled to do any thing contrary to their wishes, they 
came the next year, with two children, and stayed several 
months, visiting their friends in Boston and elsewhere. The 
Legislature of the State granted them a tract of land, if they 
would plant themselves in New England ; but she positively 
refused on this ground, — that it would endanger her soul. 
She visited here twice afterwards, and lived to a great age." 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



173 



ELEAZER WILLIAMS, GRANDSON OF EUNICE 
WILLIAMS. 

A strange story is going the rounds of the public papers 
anjd magazines, purporting that Eleazer Williams, the part- 
breed Indian, a descendant from Eunice mentioned above, who 
was taken captive at the time of the destruction of the town 
of Deerfield by the French and Indians in 1703-4, is the 
Dauphin, son of Louis the Sixteenth, late king of France. 
I have been acquainted with Eleazer ever since he was a 
young man, and have never heard his origin or his parentage 
doubted until within the last four or five years, and never 
from him before the year 1849. I have no doubt of his regu- 
lar descent from Eunice Williams ; and, notwithstanding all 
that has been said about his having no Indian appearance 
about him and no Indian blood in his veins, I think in many 
respects he resembles an Indian half-breed. Let others who 
have seen him judge for themselves. He showed me a scar 
upon his side, which he said was in consequence of a wound 
he received in the late war with Great Britain. He request- 
ed me to examine the scar for the purpose of determining 
whether I thought such a wound would be sufficient to entitle 
him to a pension from Congress. I do not know how much 
the color of his skin may have altered since then, under his 
dress, but at that time it was more the color of an Indian 
than a white man. 

Although I have known him since he was quite young, yet 
I have never discovered any traces of idiocy about him, as 
alleged ; and others, who have known him when he was a 
boy, coincide with me in this opinion. 

The astounding announcement which was said to have 
been made to him by De Joinville, at Green Bay, in 1841, 
that he was the Dauphin, son of Louis the Sixteenth, late 
king of France, seemed not to have obtained much notoriety 
till several years afterwards. This alleged conference may 



174 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



be found in Putnam's Magazine for February, 1853. Prince 
de Joinville was son of Louis Philippe, a relative of Louis 
the Sixteenth, who was beheaded in the French Revolution, 
and distant presumptive heir to the throne of France. If the 
Dauphin's title to the throne was extinguished, then one bar 
to De Joinville's accession to the throne would be removed, 
and to effect this was supposed to be the object of the Prince's 
visit to Eleazer. 

If it was true that Eleazer believed himself to be the Dau- 
phin, why was he so long silent upon the subject? Scarce 
a lisp of it reached my ears for nearly five years. In the 
year 1846 I prepared and wrote a " Genealogy and History 
of the Williams Family in America," which was published 
in a large-sized duodecimo volume, with plates, in the year 
1847. As I had but little knowledge of Eleazer's family be- 
yond his descent from Eunice Williams by her Indian hus- 
band, I requested him to give me an account of them, and in 
1846 — five years after his conversation with De Joinville — 
he gave me the substance of the following notice of his fam- 
ily, without ever making the most distant allusion to his royal 
descent, or to his ever having had an interview with De Join- 
ville. The reader can judge whether, if he believed himself 
to be of royal descent, he would not have alluded to the 
fact. 

My book relates, that Eunice Williams, who was carried 
captive to Canada in the year 1704, when eight years of age, 
was daughter of the Rev. John Williams, first minister of 
Deerfield ; was born September 17, 1696, and died in captivity 
at the age of ninety years. At the time Mr. Williams was re- 
deemed, she was left among the Indians, and no money could 
procure her redemption. She soon forgot the English lan- 
guage, became an Indian in her habits, married an Indian, 
who, it is said, assumed the name of Williams, though the 
Rev. Eleazer Williams of Green Bay states that his great- 
grandmother married an Indian by the name of De Rogers, 
and had three children, one son, John, and two daughters. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



175 



He says it is not true, as has been heretofore stated, that the 
Indian who married Eunice assumed the name of Williams, 
but that he (Eleazer) received the name of Williams legiti- 
mately, or in course, as I shall mention subsequently. John, 
the only son of Eunice, was killed in the French and Indian 
wars under the celebrated partisan Rogers, at Rogers's Rock, 
at Lake George, in 1758, Some years after her marriage, 
Eunice visited Deerfield in her Indian dress. She attended 
meeting in her father's church while here, and her friends 
dressed her in the English fashion. She indignantly threw 
off her clothes in the afternoon, and resumed the Indian 
blanket. Every effort was made to persuade her to leave 
the Indians and remain among her relations, but in vain. 
She preferred the Indian mode of life and the haunts of the 
Indians, to the unutterable grief of her father and friends. 
Her descendants have frequently visited Deerfield since, and 
claimed a relationship with the family and descendants of 
the Rev. Mr. Williams, and been treated kindly by them. 

I understand by Eleazer, that Charles B. Sallerville, a re- 
lation, has written her biography in a large manuscript vol- 
ume. According to Eleazer, her children by John De 
Rogers were John, who died in infancy ; Sarah, who mar- 
ried a Williams ; Catherine, who married Francis Here 
Rice. Their child was Thomas, an only son and only de- 
scendant from her. He married Marian De Rice, a daugh- 
ter of one of the captives from Marlborough, Mass. Their 
children were Catherine, died 1802, aged 24 ; Thomas, sup- 
posed to be dead; William, died 1831; Eleazer; Louis; 
John ; Peter, died 1802 ; Mary Ann, Charles Pitkin, who 
both died young ; and Jarvis. 

Sarah, daughter of Eunice above, who was captured at 
Deerfield, married an English physician by the name of Wil- 
liams in the year 1758. The story told me by Eleazer, her 
grandson, in relation to this man, is substantially as follows : 
— "In the French war of 1755-60, an English fleet was 
sent out against the French, which separated in a tremendous 



176 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



storm near the coast of Nova Scotia. Dr. Williams was on 
board one of the vessels, which was afterwards taken by a 
French man-of-war. As Dr. Williams was a man of sci- 
ence and a distinguished physician, he was treated with a 
great deal of attention by the French physicians in Canada. 
He was a botanist, and was suffered to ramble in various 
parts of Canada, and was carried by the Indians in their ca- 
noes to several of their towns. At Caughnawaga he became 
acquainted with Sarah, the daughter of Eunice, and married 
her, on condition that he would not move from Canada. This 
physician proved to be the son of the Bishop of Chichester in 
England. They had one son, Thomas Williams, the father 
of Eleazer Williams, whom I have seen at Deerfield when I 
was a boy. He was a captain in the British service during 
the American Revolutionary War. Thomas married a 
Frenchwoman ; so that Eleazer, according to his own state- 
ment, has part English, part Indian, and part French blood 
in his veins. He had several sons ; among the rest, Rev. 
Eleazer Williams, of Green Bay, who was born not far from 
the year 1790. He was educated in the United States, and 
studied his profession, if I recollect right, with the celebrated 
Dr. Moses Welch, of Mansfield, Conn. He is now (1847) 
preaching to the remnant of the Stockbridge tribe of Indians 
at Green Bay, in Wisconsin Territory. He is an Episco- 
palian in Deacon's orders, though educated a Congregational- 
ism He has received marked attention throughout the coun- 
try, and is a" highly distinguished man. He married Miss 
Mary Hobart Jourdan, a distant relative of the king of 
France, from whom he has been honored with several splen- 
did gifts, among the rest a golden cross and star. He has 
one son, by the name of John." 

Nearly the whole of the above statements, as I have men- 
tioned, I had from Eleazer himself, five years after his con- 
ference with De Joinville. The public can attach what im- 
portance to them they please. 

In relation to his age, Eleazer has frequently told me that 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



177 



he was born about the year 1790. By this he did not mean 
five years before, or five years after. We have often com- 
pared ages, and he has called his age about the same as mine, 
and I was born in the year 1790. Mr. Hale, Editor of the 
Boston Daily Advertiser, with whose father, at Westhamp- 
ton, Eleazer lived for some time, says, when he first saw 
him, in 1800, he was then but ten years of age. The late 
Governor Williams, of Vermont, who was intimately ac- 
quainted with him, even from a youth, thinks he was born 
about the year 1790. While at my house in the year 1851, 
after having for the first time in my hearing talked over the 
subject of his being the Dauphin, some one of my family in- 
quired of him concerning his age, and he replied, " If I am a 
Williams, I am so old ; but if I am the Dauphin, I am older." 
The Dauphin was born in 1785, consequently Eleazer is 
about five years younger, which must be fatal to his claims. 

In relation to his conversation with De Joinville, he has 
frequently told me and my family that his visit from the 
Prince was in consequence of his relationship to his wife, and 
that he received his presents from the same cause. His sto- 
ries here were much at variance with those in the Magazine. 

It appears from letters which I have from time to time re- 
ceived from Eleazer, in addition to the genealogy mentioned 
above, that he persisted for a number of years after his al- 
leged conversation with De Joinville in acknowledging his 
descent from the Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, whom he 
uniformly speaks of as his grandsire, although removed to 
the fourth generation from him. Nothing is more common 
than speaking of progenitors and relations in the fourth gen- 
eration, and even further removed, as grandparents, uncles, 
&c. 

He wrote me from Green Bay on the 27th of December, 
1845, as follows: " I am highly pleased to learn that you 
are tracing out the genealogy of the Williams family, and 
particularly of my grandfather, Rev. John Williams." 

In a letter to me from Green Bay, bearing date August 



178 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



3d, 1846, after speaking- of a discourse which he intended to 
prepare and deliver to the inhabitants of Deerfield, in relation 
to the life and character of the Kev. John Williams, first 
minister of Deerfield, he says : "I am still desirous to pay a 
tribute of respect to the memory of my departed grandsire. 
Although the materials in hand for a biography are some- 
what scanty, yet I am in hopes that I shall be able to collect 
sufficient, from the bureaus of the descendants in your State, 
to make the discourse interesting, particularly to our family." 

He proposed a contribution for two discourses before the 
citizens of this town. He delivered them on two successive 
evenings, before very small audiences. I should hardly 
think there were thirty people at the last lecture. A contri- 
bution was taken up, and I think not much more than three 
dollars was raised. Mr. Williams went directly from Deer- 
field to Boston, and about that time there appeared an an- 
nouncement in one of the Boston papers, that his lectures had 
been received with great applause by very large and respect- 
able audiences at Deerfield. It is not an uncommon thing 
for two hundred and fifty people, and sometimes many more, 
to attend such lectures here. 

Extract from a letter from him, dated Green Bay, October 
21st, 1846 : — 

" Dr. S. W. Williams : — 
"Dear Sir, — As you have expressed a strong desire to 
know whether the portrait of my grandsire (Rev. John Wil- 
liams) can be obtained for the object you have in view, I have 
to say that it will afford me peculiar pleasure to aid you 
in your laudable undertaking by putting the same into your 
hands. 

" I am, dear Sir, your affectionate kinsman, 

" E. Williams." 

In a letter to me of September 30th, 1847, dated at Buf- 
falo, he says : " In accordance to your request, I have this 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



179 



day sent you a portrait of my grandfather Williams, taken in 
daguerreotype. Although it is a correct or good representa- 
tion, says one, yet it is rather too faint." I received this por- 
trait too late to insert it in my genealogy of the Williams 
family, and returned it to him soon after. 

Now, on the 4th of July, 1849, eight years after the 
astonishing communication of De Joinville that he was the 
lost Dauphin, the son of Louis the Sixteenth, and after the 
subject had been discussed in the public papers, he for the 
first time communicates to me doubts of his origin and de- 
scent. He says, in a letter of that date : " As to my pedi- 
gree, I must confess at times I have been at a loss how to 
dispose of it in my thoughts. I perceive there are many and 
various conjectures as to the real person who has been the 
subject of such notice in the public prints. There are cer- 
tainly doubts and mystery existing in relation to some of 
Thomas Williams's children. Among many others, I will 
only mention one ; viz. it appears from the baptismal regis- 
ter, lately obtained from the Romish priest at Caughnawaga, 
which was accompanied by his affidavit, sworn before one of 
her Majesty's justices of the peace, stating that to be a true 
list of the names of the births of the children of Thomas Wil- 
liams (an Iroquois chief), and no such name as Eleazer is to 
be found among them in the register. The intervals of the 
births of the children, being nine in number, are regular, 
excepting two." 

I understand that the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, of Boston, in his 
recent lecture delivered in that city, stated that he had pro- 
cured facts from Canada, showing that the reason why the 
name of Eleazer was omitted in the baptismal register was 
that he was born in the woods on a hunting excursion, 
which frequently occupies many weeks. 

Thus, then, from Eleazer's letters to me, we see that he 
never expressed a shadow of doubt of his direct lineal descent 
from the Rev. John Williams, first minister of Deerfield, till 
the month of July, 1849, nor while giving me a genealogical 
account of his family, to be published as matter of history. 



180 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



De Joinville, through his former secretary, Aug. Tro- 
gnon, in an able letter of February 9, 1853, published in the 
April number of Putnam's Magazine, says, that he met Mr. 
Williams at Mackinaw in 1841, and had some conversation 
with him about the French and Indian wars. One great ob- 
ject of his visit to Mackinaw, Green Bay, and the Upper 
Mississippi was " to retrace the glorious path of the French, 
who had first opened to civilization those fine countries." 
While at Boston, he had probably learned that a person resid- 
ed at Green Bay, of part Indian descent, by the name of Elea- 
zer Williams, who was preaching to the Indians there, had 
a good many facts in relation to the subject of his inquiry, 
and, in the journey and voyage thither, it was perfectly natu- 
ral for him to make inquiries concerning him on his route ; so 
that nothing can be made out from the subject of these inves- 
tigations to establish the fact of his seeking him out to com- 
municate to him the story of his being the son of Louis the 
Sixteenth. Indeed, the Prince, in the letter of Trognon, ab- 
solutely disclaims and denies having had any conversation 
with Eleazer upon that subject. He says, after having given 
an account of his conference with him in relation to the 
French wars : " But there ends all which the article contains 
of truth concerning the relations of the Prince with Mr. Wil- 
liams. All the rest, all which treats of the revelation which 
the Prince made to Mr. Williams concerning the pretended 
personage of Louis the Seventeenth, is, from one end to the 
other, a work of the imagination, a fable woven wholesale, a 
speculation upon the public credulity." 

There is an anachronism, too, in the narrative of the Maga- 
zine, which has not been corrected there, which states that 
De Liancourt, who travelled in the United States in the year 
1795, visited Colonel Ephraim Williams, the founder of Wil- 
liams College, at Stockbridge, that year ; when the fact is, 
that Colonel Williams was killed near Lake George, at the 
bloody morning scout, so called, on the 8th of September, 
1755, forty years before. 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



181 



The following notice of Eleazer Williams, from the Chris- 
tian Inquirer of New York, of February 12th, 1853, views 
the subject in the same light that I do, and is so just that I 
cannot refrain from copying it. 

" To the Editors of the Christian Inquirer. 
" Many of your readers will undoubtedly have been made 
aware, through the February number of Putnam's Monthly, 
that Rev. Eleazer Williams, missionary to the Onondaga In- 
dians, is no less a personage than Louis the Seventeenth of 
France, son of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette, 
heir of Hugh Capet, St. Louis, Henry the Fourth, and Louis 
the Fourteenth, of the French monarchy. It is not a little 
unfortunate for this interesting romance, that the age of the 
worthy gentleman in question does not better correspond with 
the date of the Dauphin's birth. The French prince should 
now be of the age of sixty-eight, while Mr. Williams has 
been held to be not much over sixty. And though it is quite 
possible that a healthy man of sixty-eight should appear seven 
or eight years younger than he really is, it is not so easy that 
a man of twenty-eight should appear to be but twenty, and 
still less easy for a youth of eighteen to go for a boy of ten. 
Now Eleazer Williams has been known in Massachusetts 
from his boyhood. As a boy, he lived with the Rev. Mr. 
Ely, on the Connecticut, where some, we presume, remember 
him. Dr. Willard, of Deerfield, [probably the writer means 
Dr. Williams, of Deerfield, as I have been acquainted with 
him much longer than Dr. Willard has,] remembers seeing 
him in other parts of the State when he was about the age of 
twenty. He is descended (by repute at least) from Eunice, 
daughter of the captive Williams, and again, farther down, 
from another captive family, of Marlborough, and is one 
quarter Indian, as his physiognomy, it must be confessed, 
pretty plainly shows. His journal is, indeed, a most re- 
markable specimen of evidence, and convinces us that it is 
most unfortunate for this weak gentleman that the Prince de 



182 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



Joinville made to him the astonishing disclosure. His head 
is evidently turned, and the limits between fact and dream 
have become to him quite hazy. Our private opinion is, 
the little politeness of the young Frenchman gave an exal- 
tation to his fancy which was not favora bleto his observing 
nor to his reasoning powers. A wonderful history has been 
spun out of very small materials. It must indeed have struck 
even Dr. Hawks and Mr. Hanson as a little singular, that a 
child treated for so long a time as brutally as the Dauphin 
was, and reduced to idiocy and affected with scrofula, and 
brought very dear to death, if he did not actually die, should 
have survived transportation to our backwoods, and turn out 
a remarkably healthy man, carrying even to his age uncom- 
mon freshness and activity, with no traces whatever of those 
prolonged cruelties except the scars which, should prove 
them. It is certainly a wondrous instance of the benefits of 
a sea voyage and an out-door life. 

" Mr. Williams has been very unfortunate in losing all the 
documents on which his story is grounded. This loss, how- 
ever, is made up by accounts, industriously collected by the 
Rev. Mr. Hanson, of many mysterious journeys of French- 
men into parts of the country where Mr. Williams was, some 
of whom kissed him when he was a boy, and others gave 
him books for his Indians when he was a man. Louis Phi- 
lippe himself made a journey down the Ohio and Mississippi 
on his account. We think, however, that, in the present 
state of France, Mr. Williams had better cut off his poster- 
ity and take the royal estates. They would have been of 
more value than his claim. ML" 

The Christian Register of February 26th, 1853, published 
at Boston, says< u The Rev. Dr. Lothrop of this city de- 
livered a lecture on Monday evening, before the Mercantile 
Library Association, on the ' lost Dauphin,' in which he exam- 
ined the claims of the Rev. Eleazer Williams. The speaker 
had known Mr. Williams for twelve years, visited him in 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



183 



1845, at his residence in Wisconsin, and received two visits 
from him in Boston. In his opinion, there is not a particle of 
evidence in Mr. W.'s favor, except what depends upon his 
' say so.' " The Transcript, from which we take this state- 
ment, gives the following- interesting report on one portion of 
it : "It appears that Mr. Williams came to Boston with his 
whole property, consisting of a considerable tract of land in 
Wisconsin, encumbered by a bond and mortgage to the 
amount of eighteen hundred dollars, which bond in the course 
of trade had fallen into the hands of parties in this city who 
could not grant a renewal of extension. In twenty-four hours 
from the time these facts became known to Mr. Lothrop, he 
was enabled, through the kindness of the late Amos Law- 
rence, to hand to Mr. Williams a check for the whole 
amount, and to send him home with his bond in his posses- 
sion, redeemed and cancelled." 

The following is an extract from a letter which I have re- 
cently received from the late Governor Charles K. Williams, 
of Vermont. It was written about a fortnight before his 
death. No man was better qualified to judge upon this sub- 
ject than Governor Williams. He had lived quite near him 
for a long period, in the early part of his life. 

" Rutland, Vt., February 26th, 1853. 
" Dr. Williams : — 
" My dear Sir, — I was much pleased to receive yours 
of the 18th instant. I had noticed the articles in relation to 
the Rev. Eleazer Williams, and can only say, that I have 
never had any doubt that he was of Indian extraction, and a 
descendant of Eunice Williams. His father and mother were 
both of them at my father's house, although I cannot ascer- 
tain definitively the year. I have known him for a long time, 
saw him at Plattsburg in the year 1812, and before at my 
father's. Has been at my house three or four times within 
the last two years. I have never conversed with him much 
on the subjec of his being the Dauphin, as he probably un- 



184 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



derstood, from what I did say, that I had no faith at all in 
his being any thing- else than a descendant from Eunice. 
Although I cannot fix upon any particular data, yet my im- 
pression is the same as yours, that he was born in 1790. 

" Eleazer's mother is said to be alive, but, I believe, does 
not favor his pretensions. I have the impression that the 
family of Thomas Williams reside in Caughnawaga, a village 
near Montreal, and if there is any record of the baptism of 
the family of Thomas Williams, it will be found there. I 
hope to see you in the course of the coming spring and sum- 
mer, and will converse with you freely on the matter. I con- 
sider it all as a humbug, and that it will be exploded in the 
course of a few months. 

' k With great respect, I remain 

" Your friend and humble servant, 

" Charles K. Williams." 

Such is some of the evidence to show that the Dauphin, if 
living, cannot be Eleazer Williams. 

I shall now endeavor to show, by direct and positive evi- 
dence, that the Dauphin actually died at the time pointed out 
by the most veracious historians. 

The Dauphin. 

Thiers, in his history of the French Revolution, speak- 
ing of the young prince, Louis the Seventeenth, son of Louis 
the Sixteenth, says, that he died of a tumor of the knee aris- 
ing from a scrofulous complaint. The royalist agents assert- 
ed that he had been poisoned. Alison says : " The 9th Ther- 
midor came too late to save the unfortunate King of France, 
Louis the Seventeenth. His jailer, Simon, was, indeed, be- 
headed, and a less cruel tyrant substituted in his place ; but 
the temper of the times would not, at first, admit of any 
decided measures of indulgence in favor of the heir of the 
throne. The barbarous treatment he had experienced from 
Simon had alienated his reason, but not extinguished his 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



185 



feelings of gratitude. On one occasion the inhuman wretch 
had seized him by the hair, and threatened to dash his head 
against the wall ; the surgeon, Nautin, interfered to prevent 
him, and the child next day presented him with two pears, 
which had been given him for his supper the preceding even- 
ing, lamenting, at the same time, that he had no other means 
of testifying his gratitude. Simon and Heber had put him to 
the torture, to extract from him an avowal of crimes con- 
nected with his mother, which he was too young to under- 
stand. After that cruel day, he almost always preserved 
silence, lest his words should prove fatal to some of his rela- 
tions. This resolution and the closeness of his confinement 
soon preyed upon his health. In February, 17 ( .)5, he was 
seized with a fever, and visited by three members of the 
Committee of Public Safety ; they found him seated at a 
little table, making castles of cards. They addressed to him 
words of kindness, but could not obtain an answer. In May 
the state of his health became so alarming, that the celebrated 
surgeon Desault was directed by the Convention to visit him. 
His generous attentions assuaged the sufferings of the child's 
latter days, but could not prolong his life." 

Scott, in his Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, thus speaks of 
the death of the Dauphin : — " The Dauphin we have already 
described as a promising child of seven years old, at which 
no offence could have been given, and from which no danger 
could have been apprehended. Nevertheless, it was resolved 
to destroy the innocent child, and by means which to ordi- 
nary murders seem deeds of charity. 

" The unhappy boy was put in charge of the most hard- 
hearted villain whom the community of Paris, well acquainted 
with where such agents were to be found, were able to select 
from their band of Jacobins. The wretch, a shoemaker, 
called Simon, asked his employers ' what was to be done 
with the young wolf-whelp. Was he to be slain ? ' ' No.' 
'Poisoned ? ' ' No.' ' Starved to death V 'No.' ' What 
then? ' ' He was to be got rid of.' Accordingly, by a contin- 
12 



186 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



uance of the most severe treatment, — by beating, cold, vigils, 
fasts, and ill usage of almost every kind, — so frail a blossom 
was soon blighted. He died on the 8th of Jane, 1795." 

The Debats, a French journal devoted to the interest of the 
Orleans dynasty, in a memoir of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
says that her brother, the Dauphin, expired in his prison on 
the 8th of June, 1795. (See Littell's Living Age, Vol. 
XXXI. p. 617.) 

The Duchesse d'Angouleme further says, that, at the time 
he died, three respectable surgeons of France, who saw him 
at the time of his death, all testified to the fact of his having 
died at that time. 

The Encyclopaedia Americana, under the article Louis the 
Seventeenth, by Eckhard, says unequivocally that Louis the 
Dauphin died in 1795. 

Abbott, in his History of Marie Antoinette, p. 316, speak- 
ing of the Dauphin, says : " The patient, inured to suffering, 
with blighted hopes and a crushed heart, lingered in silence 
for a few days upon his bed, and died on the 9th of June, 
1795, in the tenth year of his age." 

Putnam's Magazine for March contains a notice of Beau- 
chesne's Life of Louis the Seventeenth, in two large vol- 
umes. He has gathered up all the particulars of the death of 
the Dauphin from unquestionable authority, and he has no 
possible doubt as to his death at the time alluded to, June 
9th, 1795. The following is an extract from his Introduc- 
tion : — 

" I have gone to the source of all facts already known ; 
I have put myself in relation with all the living persons 
whom chance or special duty admitted into the Temple during 
the Revolution ; I have gathered a great deal of information, 
and have corrected many errors. I have intimately known 
Lasne and Gomin, the two last keepers of the Tower, and in 
whose arms Louis the Seventeeth expired. I have not con- 
sulted traditions gathered by children from the lips of their 
fathers, but the recollections of eyewitnesses, religiously 



APPENDIX AMD NOTES. 



187 



preserved in their memories and hearts. I am, then, able to 
affirm, upon personal investigation, and with certainty, the 
least circumstance of the events that I recount." 

The notice of this book in Putnam's Magazine says : — 

" Judging from the internal evidence, this is a perfectly 
honest book. We have carefully read it through, and are 
impressed with the spirit of truth and fidelity which appears 
to breathe in all its pages. Beginning with the birth of the 
Dauphin, it narrates each event of his life with the affection 
of a devotee, and the accuracy of a mathematician. The first 
volume ends with the execution of the father, and the second 
is almost exclusively occupied with the incidents of his sep- 
aration from his mother, his subsequent imprisonment, and 
death. Many of the facts related are new, and all of them 
are marked with the most tragic and touching interest. 

" Gn the 3d of July, 1793, the Dauphin was committed to 
the cruel care of Simon, the cobbler, and his wife, who con- 
tinued in charge of him, either one or the other being con- 
stantly in his presence, until the 19th of January, 1794. 
With regard to this period, M. Beauchesne gives the testi- 
mony of those women who were intimate with the wife of 
Simon, and frequently saw her during her residence at the 
Temple, as well before as after. Thus they gathered, day 
by day, from her own lips, the narrative of the brutal treat- 
ment of the young prince. Their recollections, added to the 
facts already notorious, render this chapter the most interest- 
ing in the book. After Simon left, the Dauphin was im- 
mured in a dungeon, the door of which was nailed up, all 
light being excluded, and his only communication with the 
world was through an iron lattice, which was opened from 
time to time to admit his food. 

" In this cell he remained till the 27th of July following, a 
little more than six months, when the downfall of Robe- 
spierre and the advent of the Directory brought a change in 
his treatment. A man named Laurent, a native of St. Do- 
mingo, was appointed by Barras keeper of the children of the 



188 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



ex-king. A humane and well-educated person, although an 
ardent believer in the revolutionary idea of the time, he was 
filled with horror on discovering the state of the Dauphin. 
He brought him out of the pestilential dungeon, washed him, 
dressed his sores, and caused him to be provided with clothes. 
When they entered the dungeon, the child, who was not 
ten years old, was lying in a mass of rags, filth, and ver- 
min, and so reduced and broken, that he did not move, and 
paid no attention to the many questions that were put to him. 
Finally, one of the deputies who was present, and who asked 
him several times why he had not eaten his dinner, which 
stood untouched on the shelf of the lattice, drew from him 
the reply, 'No; I want to die.' From this until his re- 
ported death, his keepers were comparatively kind, and did 
all that they dared to render his life tolerable. On the 8th of 
November, Laurent received a colleague, Gomin, and on the 
29th of March, 1795, the former resigned his charge. Dur- 
ing this period the boy used often to play draughts with 
Gomin, and to walk on the terrace of the Tower, until the 
25th of January, when his disease made it necessary that he 
should be removed. He liad tumors at all his joints, refused 
to move, and could hardly be made to speak. Still he under- 
stood every thing that was said to him, and on several occa- 
sions when alone with Gomin, whom he had learned to love, 
showed, by gestures and expressions, that he knew who he 
was, and remembered the father, mother, and sister whom 
he was never to see more. Once, by his looks and move- 
ments, he asked Gomin to take him to his sister's prison, 
which was in the same building, and when told that it was 
impossible, said, ' I want to see her once more. O, let me 
see her again before I die, I pray you ! ' Gomin took him by 
the hand, and led him to a chair. The child fell upon his 
bed in a fainting fit, and when he came to himself, burst into 
loud weeping. 

" When Laurent resigned, he was succeeded by a house- 
painter named Lasne, who, with Gomin, remained until the 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



189 



end. The new-comer took particular charge of the Dauphin, 
while Gomin became the jailer of his sister. 

" Lasne had often seen the young prince before his im- 
prisonment, and in his conversation with Beauchesne says, 
' I recognized him perfectly. His head had not changed ; it 
was still as beautiful as I had seen it in former times ; but 
his complexion was dead and colorless, his shoulders were 
high, his breast hollow, his legs and arms thin and frail, and 
large tumors covered his right knee and left wrist.' Lasne 
treated him with the greatest kindness, and was not absent 
from him a single day. On the 6th of May, on the demand 
of his keepers, who represented that his life was in danger, 
M. Desault, a physician, visited him, and recognized him as 
the Dauphin. The boy refused to take the medicine ordered 
till the second day, when Lasne, telling him that he should 
take it himself, and that he ought to save his friend from 
•such a necessity, the child said, ' You have determined, then, 
that I should take it ; well, give it to me and I will drink it.' 
On the 31st of May, M. Bellanger, a painter, happened to be 
the commissary on service for the day, and brought some 
drawings to show the little invalid. The latter looked at 
them, finally replied to the questions of the artist, and sat for 
his own portrait. At the interview with Bellanger, the child 
gave signs of intelligence by word and look ; — and indeed 
there seems to have been no good reason for supposing that 
he was ever idiotic ; an idea originating in his usual obsti- 
nate silence alone. But the very day before he died, he said 
to Gomin, who told him of the arrest of a commissary who 
had often been on duty at the Temple, ' I am very sorry, for 
you see he is more unhappy than we ; he deserves his mis- 
fortune.' He died on the 9th of June, at about two o'clock in 
the afternoon. On the night previously he said to Gomin, 
who expressed pity for his sufferings, ' Be consoled ; I shall 
not always suffer.' Some time afterward, Gomin said to 
him, ' 1 hope you do not suffer any pain now.' ' O, yes,' was 
the answer ; ' but much less, the music is *n beautiful.' As 



190 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



no music was audible, Gomin asked him, ' From what direc- 
tion do you hear music?' 'From up yonder.' Presently 
the child exclaimed in ecstasy, ' Among all the voices I hear 
that of my mother ! ' Next day, Lasne relieved Gomin from 
his attendance at the bedside. After a time the child 
moved, and Lasne asked him how he was ; to which he an- 
swered, ' Do you think my sister could have heard the mu- 
sic ? How much good it would have done her ! ' Presently 
he said, ' I have one thing to tell you.' Lasne bent to listen, 
but the boy was dead. 

" The second day after the decease the corpse was visited, 
and its identity recognized by above twenty persons, of whom 
Jive were officers, and four commissioners on duty at the post. 
The majority of those persons certified that they had seen the 
Dauphin at the Tuilleries or the Temple, and knew the dead 
body to be his. The physicians who made the post mortem 
examination certify to a tumor on the inside of the right 
knee, and another on the left wrist. These tumors had not 
changed the external skin, but existed under it. After the 
examination, the body was buried. We give the above ac- 
count without giving any further opinion on the question than 
that Mr. Beauchesne is perfectly honest in his conclusions, 
and that his witnesses will probably be viewed as trustworthy 
by a great majority of the world." 

Beauchesne further says : " Louis of France, the seventeenth 
of that name, lived only ten years, two months, and two days." 
His convictions, he says, of the Dauphin's death, have " the 
character of a certainty authentically demonstrated" ; and he 
further says,." A curse upon me, if my mind, in possession of 
the truth, should suffer my pen to lie." 

The evidence, then, in relation to the death of the Dauphin, 
in 1795, is as strong as any which can be found in history in 
relation to the death of his father, or of Marie Antoinette, his 
mother, or of almost any other distinguished personage. 
Equally strong and well-attested testimony must be brought 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



191 



on the part of the disbelievers of his death, to destroy the 
assertions of those historians. These cannot be destroyed by 
the testimony of a single individual, or even by numbers, if 
they are not equally well attested. They are sufficient to 
invalidate the claim of Eleazer Williams to the throne of 
France, and to prove that he is not the son of the late Louis 
the Sixteenth. 

The Paris correspondent of the New York Commercial 
Advertiser sends the following paragraph, which has an im- 
portant bearing on the romantic claims of the Rev. Eleazer 
Williams to be regarded as the veritable son of Louis the 
Sixteenth : — 

" Mr. Putnam will receive by this steamer a very pithy 
and conclusive document from M. de Chaumont, relative to 
the use made of his father's name in the famous Bourbon dis- 
covery. It is not intended for publication. About twenty 
distinct propositions are laid down, in the article on the al- 
leged Dauphin, concerning M. de Chaumont, senior, not one 
of which is true, or anywhere near true. The errors in dates 
are enormous. M. de Chaumont is stated to have arrived 
in America in a certain year ; he did not arrive there, how- 
ever, till eleven years afterward. On his return to France he 
is stated to have had an interview with Louis Philippe, in ref- 
erence to the Louis the Seventeenth he had seen in the United 
States. Now, M. de Chaumont never spoke to Louis Phi- 
lippe in the whole course of his life ! M. de Chaumont con- 
siders his father's name calumniated by the assertion that he 
plotted with the Indians against the United States, and that 
no contradiction of this calumny would be deemed by him too 
formal or too public." 

Rev. George E. Day writes, in answer to an inquiry in 
respect to his showing Rev. Eleazer Williams a likeness of 
Simon the jailer, as stated in Putnam's Magazine, that " the 
statement needs some modification to be correct"; that on 
seeing the portrait there was no exclamation as alleged ; and, 
" upon the whole, I felt then, and have always felt since, that 



192 



APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



whatever evidence this recognition might furnish must be 
derived from the testimony of Mr. Williams himself." 

Much more might be written to contradict the articles fa- 
voring the Dauphin controversy, but it is not deemed neces- 
sary ; my object has been rather to prove that Mr. Williams 
was a descendant of Rev. John Williams, author of " The 
Redeemed Captive." 



THE END. 



